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THE SYMBOLISM
OF VOLTAIRE'S NOVELS
WITH SPECIAL EEFEEENCE TO ZADIG
BY
WILLIAM RALEIGH PEICE, PH.D.
Sotfc
THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
1911
II rights referred
Copyright, 1911
By THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Printed from type. Published September, 1911
?76"
PRESS OF
THE NEW ERA PRINTINS COMPANY
LANCASTER. PA.
Columbia
STUDIES IN ROMANCE PHILOLOGY AND
LITERATURE
THE BYMBOLISM
OF VOLTAIRE'S NOVELS
COLUMBIA
UNIVERSITY PRESS
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The Symbolism of Voltaire's Novels
With Special Reference to Zadig
CHAPTEK I
INTEODUCTION
THE purpose of this Introduction is to show,
(1) where a real lacuna exists in the study of
Voltaire's novels, and (2) how that lacuna is to
be filled.
In order to show this, I shall give a resume
and an analysis of what has been done by my
predecessors in the field.
RESUME OF THE BIBLIOGRAPHY
A.
'No less a scholar than Gaston Paris has treated
the episode of the Angel and the Hermit (La
Poesie du moyen age, premiere serie, troisieme
edition, Paris, 1895, p. 151 ft.) as it has ap-
peared in literature from the earliest times
down. If he had connected this episode with
1 1
2 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
Voltaire's life and informed us just what Vol-
*" taire meant by it, there would be nothing more
to be said on this topic; but, unfortunately, he
neglected to do that.
There is a dissertation on the Sources of
Zadig, by Mr. W. Seele (Leipzig, 1891), which
is largely an elaboration of hints thrown out by
Dunlop and others. The author confines him-
self strictly to his subject of the sources, giving
nothing about Voltaire's purpose in writing the
novel.
In treating the general topic of the Orient in
French, German and English literatures, the
following authors have something to say about
Zadig: (1) Pierre Martino (L' Orient dans la
litterature frangaise au XVII 6 et au XVIII 6
siecle, Paris, 1906) ; (2) A. J. F. Remy (The
Influence of India and Persia on the poetry of
Germany, New York, 1901) ; (3) Martha P.
Conant (The Oriental Tale in England in the
Eighteenth Century, New York, 1908).
M. Pierre Martino gives the impression that he
is not at all sure just what Zadig purports to be ;
he dismisses the subject of its realism by saying
that it is a capricious tale in the style of Crebil-
lon fils, in which allusions to modern life crop
INTRODUCTION 3
up unexpectedly and by way of contrast (p.
277 f.). Dr- Remy points out the immediate
and the ultimate sources of the novel (p. 15),
and calls attention to the meaning of the name
of the hero as " Speaker of the truth " (follow-
ing, in this interpretation, Hammer, Geschichte
der schonen Redekiinste Persiens) . But neither
Remy nor Hammer attempted to show whether
Voltaire was familiar with this meaning, either
by citing his possible authorities, or by internal
evidence from the novel. Miss Conant says (p.
135) that Zadig is, "of course," Voltaire, but
she offers no evidence to substantiate her asser-
tion. She probably followed Parton's Life of
Voltaire, in which the Duchess of Maine is
quoted as authority for that application. Miss
Conant also indicates her belief that the other
characters, "with their fanciful Oriental
names," are Voltaire's court friends and
enemies.
Desnoiresterres has little to say about Vol-
taire's novels. He gives a paragraph of three
lines to Candide, and calls attention, in a note,
to the perfidious intention, the sly allusions, of
Zadig. In his well-known Life of Voltaire,
S. G. Tallentyre says that Candide is directed
4 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
against Jean Jacques Rousseau, but fails to
specify in what way and to what extent. The
general histories of the novel are just as meagre,
with the exception of Dunlop, for the sources
of Zadig. Dunlop contrasts the successful in-
vestigation of the sources of Zadig with the fail-
ure to discover any literary sources for Candide.
There are a few magazine articles about Vol-
taire's novels, of which the following may be
mentioned: (1) Blackwood's Magazine, IV
(1819), p. 155 ff.; (2) Dublin University
Magazine, LXVII (1866), p. 64 ff., p. 184 ff.;
(3) Modern Language Notes, 1906 (in which
Mr. Leon Fraser points out the earliest source
of the episode of the Dog and the Horse, in the
Talmud) .
Louis Moland (whose edition of Voltaire's
works will be referred to as M., followed by the
volume and the page number), gives excerpts
of the more important utterances about Vol-
taire's novels (in Vols. I and XXI, the latter
of which contains the novels). They deal prin-
cipally with the moral of the novels (i. e. f the
philosophic thesis, what the Germans call the
Tendenz), or they are expressions of personal
impressions. Moland's edition also reproduces
INTRODUCTION 5
the footnotes of his predecessors, and offers some
original ones. They give important indications
of the purpose of Voltaire in writing his novels,
but no general conclusions are drawn from them.
ANALYSIS OF THE BIBLIOGRAPHY
The above resume of the Bibliography shows
that the three points of view in literary criti-
cism: the historical, the psychological, and the
impressionistic, are all represented, but in very
unequal proportions and by critics of widely
different significance. I shall treat them suc-
cessively under their proper headings.
THE HISTORICAL CRITICISMS
The historical criticisms deal, it will be
noticed, exclusively with the literary sources.
The problem that confronts us here is to deter-
mine the significance of such investigations for
the interpretation of Voltaire's novels.
No attempt is made by me to belittle the im-
portance of the investigation of sources per se;
the point is, whether such investigations are im-
portant for Voltaire's work. I shall attempt to
show that they have little or no importance.
In the first place, what have we accomplished
6 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
when we have shown that every episode in
Zadig is imitated from this or that literary
source ? We have, at the most, confirmed Fre-
ron's charge (M. 21, p. 86, note 1), that Vol-
taire was a common plagiarist, lacking in in-
vention and devoid of imagination. That would
be a remarkable conclusion about the work of
a man like Voltaire, whose imagination re-
ceived such unstinted praise from his contem-
poraries, and which, even to us, sparkles and
effervesces through the printed words.
In the second place, if Zadig is a literary
patch-work, how are we to explain Candide, for
which no literary sources have been discovered ?
Is it likely that Voltaire's imagination, verve,
originality, invention were less in 1747 than in
1759 ? On the contrary, the conclusion is
absurd.
I consider it demonstrated that, the greater
and the better founded the charges of imitation
in Zadig seem, the less the significance of such
charges is for the interpretation of Voltaire's
work.
Now, if the significance of Voltaire's novels
is not in the sources, wherein does it consist?
I shall show that it consists in his symbolism.
INTRODUCTION 7
In the first place, what has Voltaire to do
with Oriental fiction? or with fiction? or with
the Orient ? Is it not clear that the Orient is,
for him, but a symbol for the Occident, just as /
he speaks of the bonzes and the Magians as
symbols of the priests of France ? We must
never lose sight of the intensely practical char-
acter of Voltaire's work; its very intimate con-
nection with his own life and the life of his
times. He was not the type of author who shut
himself up in his study and thought out or
sought out fine themes and situations for artistic
remaniment. Even his dramas have an inti-
mate connection with the thought, life, and
social conditions in which he lived. He was
probably inspired to compose (Edipe by the
relations of the Kegent and his daughter, the
famous Duchess of Berry. He tells us that the
persecutions which he suffered during the period
of the Voltairomanie turned to tragic sentiments
and inspired the composition of Zulime and
Mahomet (M. 35, pp. 226-227). If that is
true of his dramas, how much more must it be
true of his novels! There is an edition of
Zadig of the year 1756 (cf. Bengesco, I, p. 438,
note) entitled: La destinee ou le theatre de la
8 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
vie humaine, ouvrage historique de M. de Vol-
taire. The publisher of that edition took liber-
ties with Voltaire's title, but the character of
Voltaire's work justifies them. Destiny is but
the linking of cause and effect in a given en-
vironment. If, in Zadig, the Orient is a symbol
for the Occident, the characters, the scenes, the
incidents and episodes of the novel are also sym-
bolic, and the literary sources can have nothing
to do with the interpretation of the work. Vol-
taire seems to wish to indicate that the sig-
nificance of Zadig lies in its symbolism, when
he says, in the Epitre dedicatoire (M. 21, p.
32), that I'histoire de Zadig (est un) ouvrage
qui dit plus qu'il ne semble dire.
The conclusion which we have reached by an
analysis of the historical criticisms is fortified
by Voltaire's opinions about the novel in gen-
eral, and about particular novels. It is obvious
that one of the best indications as to what Vol-
taire's novels are likely to be, as well as what
they are likely not to be, is furnished by his
criticisms of. other novels. The following are
the more important of these criticisms.
INTRODUCTION 9
VOLTAIBE'S CRITICISMS OF THE NOVEL
He praises Gulliver (M. 33, p. 165; Febr.
1727), which had appeared the preceding year.
"C'est le Rabelais de PAngleterre; mais c'est
un Habelais sans fatras, et ce livre serait amu-
sant par lui-meme, par les imaginations singu-
lieres dont il est plein, par la legerete de son
style, . . . quand il ne serait pas d'ailleurs la
satire du genre humain."
He does not understand the Esprit des Lois,
but he praises the Lettres persanes: "bon ouv-
rage que celui-la" (M. 1, p. 349). "Ces ouv-
rages d'ordinaire ne reussissent qu'a la faveur
de 1'air etranger; on met avec succes dans la
bouche d'un Asiatique la satire de notre pays,
qui serait bien moins accueillie dans la bouche
d'un compatriote ; ce qui est commun par soi-
meme devient alors singulier" (M. 14, Cata-
logue des grands ecrivains, article Montesquieu}.
He praises the satire of contemporary events
and personages by Crebillon fils (Tanzai et
^
Neardane, ou I' Ecumoire, Jiistoire japonaise).
"L'Histoire japonaise m'a fort rejoui dans ma
solitude; je ne sais rien de si fou que ce livre,
et rien de si sot que d'avoir mis Pauteur a la Bas-
tille. Dans quel siecle vivons-nous done? On
10 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIRE'S NOVELS
brulerait apparemment La Fontaine au-
jourd'hui" (M. 33, p. 461, note; p. 4T2).
They would have burned him (Voltaire), if
he had been the author, is the sentiment of his
friends.
There are scores of references for his scorn
of the usual type of novel, with its imaginary
events and personages. They are lacking in
imagination, full of portraits of people whom
the author does not know (M. 21, p. 48), and
spoil the taste of young people (M. 14, p. 142).
There is more in four pages of Ariosto than in
all these insipid writings which inundate
France. He is never tired of praising Ariosto's
admirable allegories, which make his poems im-
mortal.
The following letter to Marmontel, whose
Conies moraux were so popular in the latter
half of the 18th century, is a perfectly clear and
definite indication of Voltaire's conception of
the mission which fiction should fulfill (Janu-
ary 28, 1764) ; " Vous devriez bien nous faire
des contes philosophiques, ou vous rendriez
ridicules certains sots et certaines sottises, cer-
taines mechancetes et certains mechants; le
tout avec discretion, en prenant bien votre
INTRODUCTION 11
temps, et en rognant les griffes de la bete quand
vous la trouverez un peu endonnie." What
better plan, and what plan more in harmony
with all that we know of Voltaire, could be
chosen by the author of Zadig and Candide,
than the one indicated here: to draw his char-
acters and scenes from reality, subordinated to
an anti-religious tendency ? It is significant for
his realism that he wrote to the Marquis de
Thibouville, author of love stories of Egypt
and Syria, that Mme. Denis was more inter-
ested in what was taking place in Germany dur-
ing the Seven Years' War, than in what was
going on at Memphis and Babylon (M. 39, p.
301). Frederick also shows that he was fully
cognizant of the realistic bearing of Voltaire's
works when he urges him to write an AJcakia
to flay the fools of Europe and their follies (M.
39, p. 434). There is no doubt that Voltaire
was following his advice when he composed
Candide. Frederick also gives testimony to the
presence of moral allegories in Zadig and Can-
dide (M. 1, p. 139; Eloge de Voltaire par le
roi de Prusse).
Enough has been quoted to show, in connec-
tion with the historical criticisms which we
12 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIRE'S NOVELS
have analysed, that the significance of Vol-
taire's novels must consist in their relation to
his life and the life of his times. This is really
a problem in psychological criticism.
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CRITICISMS
The analysis of the Bibliography shows but
few and scattered traces of psychological criti-
cism. Where it appears is principally in con-
nection with the moral of the novels. This is
all well and good in the case of some of the
novels, as Micromegas, for example; here the
moral is everything. Take away the philo-
sophic idea of the relativity of things and there
would be nothing left. Likewise in L'Ingenu,
with its dearth of characters and incident, and
its wealth of discussion and quotations, the
tendency of the novel is of paramount impor-
tance. But this is far from being the case in
Zadig and Candide, with their great variety of
characters and episodes. Here the moral does
not play so great a role, nor is it so easy to de-
termine just what that moral is. For example,
how much further are we advanced, if, like Mo-
land, we subscribe to Auger's explanation of the
moral of Zadig and Candide? (M. 21, p. IV of
INTEODUCTION X3
the Averiissement} : " Zadig a pour objet de
demontrer que la Providence nous conduit par
des voies dont le secret lui appartient et dont
souvent s'indigne notre raison bornee et peu
soumise. Candide, tableau epouvantablement
gai des miseres de la vie humaine, est une refu-
tation du systeme de 1'optimisme, deja combattu
par Fauteur dans son poeme du Desastre de Lis-
bonne." We need to define our terms here, or
Auger's words are either meaningless or mis-
leading. We must know what Voltaire means
by Providence Jn Zadig and by Optimism in
Candide. Is it not rather strange that the
author of the Essai sur les mceurs and of the
Dictionnaire philosophique, through both of
which the phrase, odorous la Providence et
soumettons-nous, runs like a mocking refrain,
should mean it seriously and literally, in the
Christian sense, in Zadig? And is it not just
as strange that Voltaire, who never changed his
mind about Pope's Essay on Man, which he
calls the finest didactic poem ever written, and
who himself was a cause- finalier, should refute
the system of Optimism, as a philosophic con-
ception, in Candide?
What is the secret of these and similar con-
14 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
tradictions in Voltaire? Why, for example,
does the man of whom Marmontel truly said
(Memoires, Vol. 2; quoted from M. 1, p. 38;
Jugements sur Voltaire} : " Mais le plus grand
des biens, le repos, lui fut inconnu," appear in
the role of the Sybarite in the Mondain? Such
contradictions are only apparent contradictions.
Either the author takes only one phase of a
given conception, or philosophic system, and
uses it as a convenient thread on which he
strings a number of episodes, or, on the other
hand, it is not a bit different with his work
than with his descriptions of the court, for ex-
ample. At one time the court is the palais
d'Alcine; at another it is the palais du vice. It
all depends upon the author's personal experi-
ences within a given period and the purpose he
has in view in the composition of his works.
Any judgment of his literary productions apart
from the experiences in which they are rooted is
bound to be false and misleading. Thus Faguet
charges him, from the title of one of his Epitres,
with continually arguing the Pour and the
Contre. There is a basis of truth in Faguet's
charge; Voltaire does argue for and against,
but he has good and sufficient reason for so
INTRODUCTION 16
doing. The presentation of arguments for and
against in the same work is a frequent device,
with him to keep the postern open when the
main entrance is garnished by the emissaries of
persecution; his enemies have mistaken the
interlocutors ; his own ideas are those of A, not
those of B. Voltaire alternately praises and
lashes his century, but the progress of reason
on the one hand, or the success of certain fools
and their follies on the other hand, are sufficient
explanation of his conduct.
There have been two fallacies in the psycho-
logical criticisms of Voltaire's novels. They
both have to do with the moral, or tendency of
the novels, and consist in its interpretation with-
out due consideration, first, of the various mean-
ings that may be attached to such words as
Providence, Destiny, Optimism, and second, of
the author's experiences in the period in which
his work was conceived and composed. Thus
the psychological point of view, as it has been
applied to Voltaire's novels, has produced little
more than impressionism.
16 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIKE'S NOVELS
THE IMPEESSIONISTIC CRITICISMS
It is axiomatic that the personal opinions of a
critic have no more authority than we are will-
ing, or than we are obliged by various con-
siderations, to concede to them; yet they are
often of value, in that they indicate a lacuna
for historical and psychological criticism to fill.
The very fact that the impressionist expresses
an opinion without having maturely investi-
gated the subject and without a show of evi-
dence to support his conclusion, leaves the field
open for confirmation or refutal. This is true,
in a remarkable degree, of the criticisms of
Voltaire's novels.
THE LACUNA
The Duchess of Maine asserted, according
to Parton, that Zadig was Voltaire, and that
Moabdar was Louis XV. Such an expression
of opinion can not be disposed of offhand.
Many of Voltaire's novels were composed at
Sceaux, and the Duchess was in a position to
know intimately the character of these novels,
and especially that of Zadig. A large problem
is here suggested : the identification of the char-
acters of the novel with their actual or probable
INTRODUCTION 17
prototypes. That most of the personages of the
novel are Voltaire's friends and enemies " under
fanciful Oriental names," as suggested by Miss
Conant, seems probable, first, in view of the
statement of the Duchess of Maine, second, be-
cause one character, Yebor, has long been iden-
tified with Boyer, and third, because, in all Vol-
taire's novels, there are an infinity of allusions
to contemporary events and personages. The
probabilities, then, are all in favor of the hy-
pothesis that Cador, for example, is a particular
friend of Voltaire, and that Arimaze is a par-
ticular Envieux.
What Desnoiresterres calls I'intention perfide,
I'allusion sournoise suggests an equally impor-
tant lacuna, intimately connected with the pre-
ceding. What was this intention? What are
these allusions ?
The opinion of the King of Prussia that
Zadig and Candide contain moral allegories
suggests a third problem of no less importance :
the discovery and interpretation of these alle-
gories.
The opinion of Hammer and Remy that the
name Zadig is from the Arabic and means
" Speaker of the truth " suggests a fourth prob-
2
18 SYMBOLISM OF VOl/TAIKE'S NOVELS
lem of equal significance: the interpretation of
the proper names of the novels. That a real
problem confronts us here is obvious, first, be-
cause, if Zadig meant the " Truth-teller " for
Voltaire, that meaning must have influenced the
conception and execution of his novel; second,
because one anagramme (Yebor for Boyer) has
been discovered in the novel ; third, because we
meet with such curious names in Voltaire's
novels: Orcan, Ogul, Arbogad, Cacambo, Thun-
der-ten-tronckh, among others, and it is hardly
conceivable that they mean nothing.
One of the most prominent traits of the litera-
tures that Voltaire is imitating in Zadig is the
ready bestowal of epithets to commemorate cer-
tain events. Numerous instances of this will
occur to any reader of the Bible. An Arab had
as many epithets as he had characteristics. Be-
sides, Voltaire's chief argument that the
wretched Hebrews borrowed their cult from the
Egyptians, the Phrenicians, and the Babylon-
ians, was drawn from a study of their proper
names. They got their Adonai' from the Phoe
nicians, their angels and devils from the Chal-
deans, their Enoch was the same as Janus, their
Eloa was the same root as Helios, etc. Voltaire
INTRODUCTION 19
simply imitated the scholarship of his time,
wherever it suited his purpose. If it did not
suit his purpose, he discarded it with scorn and
irony. He then refers to it as the "demon of
etymologizing." Bochart and Calmet continu-
ally explained French words as derived from
the Hebrew. Bochart considered that Chinese
and German were the same language (M. 17,
p. 516). He made the Celts a colony of the
Egyptians (M. 18, p. 107). Voltaire charges
the authors of the Dictionnaire de Trevoux with
carrying this practice of etymologizing accord-
ing to sound to an absurd excess (M. 17, p.
126). Dome, they say, is from Samaritan
Doma, which means " better " ; Phison is the
same as the Guadalquivir, because, " de Phison
on fait aisement Phaetis; de Phaetis on fait
Baetis, qui est precisement le Guadalquivir"
(M. 17, p. 275).
In view of Voltaire's known practice and
that of his contemporaries, it would seem im-
portant to determine the provenience of the
names of his characters. Take the name of the
angel Jesrad, for example. Can there be any
adequate interpretation of the episode in which
he appears, without an investigation of the name
20 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIRE'S NOVELS
of this enigmatical creature, who is man and
angel, who speaks so wisely and acts so diabol-
ically, and who finally flies back to the tenth
sphere, which mythology has always assigned
as the abode of the supreme being? Or, con-
sider Arbogad, the robber. In Hebrew, gad
means both "robber" and "God." How can
a robber be God ? Or how can God be a robber ?
And what has arbo to do with the name ?
The names of the characters, the identifica-
tion of the characters, the interpretation of the
purpose of the author, of his allusions, of his
allegories, are all phases of one and the same
question, namely, Voltaire's symbolism. That
is the lacuna.
How THIS LACUNA is TO BE FILLED
The question that must be answered now, is :
How is this lacuna to be filled ? I shall try to
fill it by a careful study of Voltaire's method of
composition.
I do not refer here to Voltaire's style ; I am
not concerned with the vivacity of his language,
the rapidity of his action, the lightness of his
touch, the precision of his comparisons. What
I wish to ascertain is, how he came to create
INTRODUCTION 21
certain characters ; what they actually are, why
they are just what they are, i. e. t what the au-
thor meant them to be, and why. The problem
is one of psychological analysis; the method is
a painstaking search for data; the data are
furnished by Voltaire's works in fifty large
octavo volumes.
CHAPTER II
VOLTAIBE'S SYMBOLISM
IN this chapter I shall examine, (1) what
Voltaire's symbolism is; (2) what its sources
are; (3) why he made use of it; and (4) his
method of composition.
WHAT VOLTAIRE'S SYMBOLISM Is
I am not particularly concerned with symbol-
ism, as such, but rather with a certain type of
narrative, description, and characterization
which I think that I have discovered in Voltaire
and which, for want of a better name, I have
termed Voltaire's symbolism. I mean by it
simply his use of symbols.
What is a symbol? I use it in the sense of
anything which stands for another thing, or for
other things. In order to stand for another
thing, or for other things, a word, or term, or
sign must be, by established convention or by
individual use, a part of the idea or ideas for
which it is used as the representative; as, for
22
VOLTAIRE'S SYMBOLISM 23
example, the cross, for Christianity. A symbol
may be, therefore, by its significance and con-
ventional use, or may be made, by an artificial
association, the representative of a score of
things, by virtue of certain similar or identical
characteristics. In this respect symbolism dif-
fers from the parable, which, by its etymology,
is quite the same word. In a parable there are
generally but two terms to the comparison, as:
" The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a certain
man," etc. The parable of the ewe lamb is in
point, because it shows the second step in sym-
bolism. When the High Priest says to David:
" Thou art the man," he has changed his simile
into a metaphor, into a simple equation. Sym-
bolism is, therefore, the use, or the abuse, if you
will, of a metaphor, and may itself be illus-
trated symbolically, as follows: If A is like B,
and B is like C, and C is like D, then, by
virtue of the element common to them all,
A = B = C = D. That is Voltaire's symbol-
ism reduced to its lowest terms.
THE SOURCES OF VOLTAIRE'S SYMBOLISM
The sources of Voltaire's symbolism are to
be found ultimately in the names he gives to
24 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIRE'S NOVELS
things. Now, the names that one gives to things
depend on the way one looks at things. It is
obvious that the cross can not mean for Vol-
taire what it meant for the Jansenists or the
Jesuits, and that he can not look upon David
with the eyes of the devout believer, as a man
after God's own heart. What was the cross for
him ? It was in the same category as the sacred
cat among the Egyptians. How does he tell
the tragic story of the infamous martyrdom of
the Chevalier de La Barre ? A young man, who
failed to salute the sacred cat borne by the
hierophant in solemn procession, was killed a
coups de barre de fer. What was King David
for him? An infamous brigand who collected
a band of four hundred debauchees and usurped
the crown of a little kingdom of barbarians,
whose little tribal God was a man after the
King's own heart (M. 27, p. 232).
At best words are but symbols ; their meaning
and application are varying, subtile, elusive.
But how much so when an author plays with
them! It is obvious that an author can make
use of words in their etymological significance,
in their meaning by extension, and with any
connotations that they may have for him. How
VOLTAIRE'S SYMBOLISM 25
can Voltaire make Jean Jacques Kousseau " un
sauvage " ? First, because Rousseau loved to
wander alone in the woods, and "sauvage"
means, etymologically, "he who lives in the
woods"; second, because he made himself the
prophet of man in a state of nature. What is
paradise for Voltaire? "Vivre eternellement
A
dans les cieux avec 1'Etre supreme, ou aller se
promener dans le jardin, dans le paradis, fut
la meme chose pour les hommes, qui parlent
toujours sans s'entendre, et qui n'ont pu guere
avoir encore d'idees nettes ni d'expressions
justes" (M. 21, p. 392). These are simple il-
lustrations, but it is obvious from them that we
can know nothing of an author's symbolism
without knowing what meanings he gives to
words, how he associates them, how he makes
them equivalent, and by what name, sign, or
symbol in short, he calls this equivalence. An
author can make his symbolism as unintelli-
gible to us as a work in a foreign tongue, with
whose vocabulary and syntax we are unfamiliar.
But then he would be defeating his own pur-
pose, which is, of course, to be read and to in-
fluence his readers. Therefore the author of a
symbolic work generally indicates enough of
26 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIRE'S NOVELS
his symbolism to half conceal, half reveal his
meaning and his purpose. It sets one thinking,
whets the curiosity, and finds everywhere appre-
ciation, because each reader takes of it what
appeals to him most. But this impressionistic,
purely subjective interpretation is not the
method of the serious literary student ; he must
determine the plan of the whole work, as well as
the reciprocal relation of all its parts.
WHY VOLTAIRE MADE USE OF SYMBOLISM
Why should Voltaire make use of symbolism,
he, the great apostle of enlightenment? The
reasons are both subjective and objective.
The subjective reason is that he was an 18th
century poet. The artificiality of this poetry is
one of its most marked characteristics. No bet-
ter indication of this can be found than Vol-
taire's characterization of poetic imagery, in his
letter to Frederick (M. 34, p. 359) : "Tine idee
poetique c'est, comme le sait Votre Altesse
royale, une image brillante substitute a Fidee
naturelle de la chose dont on veut parler; par
exemple, je dirai en prose : il y a dans le monde
un jeune prince vertueux et plein de talents, qui
VOLTAIRE'S SYMBOLISM 27
deteste 1'envie et le fanatisme. Je dirai en
vers:
" Minerve ! 6 divine Astree!
Par vous sa jeunesse inspired
Suivit les arts et les vertus;
L'Envie au coeur faux, a 1'oeil louche,
Et le fanatisme farouche,
Sous ses pieds tombent abattus."
One seems to hear the maitre de philosophic of the
Bourgeois gentilhomme explaining to M. Jour-
dain the difference between prose and poetry.
The idea that nothing which was natural could
be poetic seems strange to us, but it was not
strange to Voltaire and his contemporaries.
Everywhere we find this love of figures, of alle-
gory, of brilliant imagery. It reminds one of the
preciosity of the hotel de Kambouillet; and, by
his education and training, although not by his
active participation in the life of his century,
Voltaire belongs to the Siecle de Louis XIV,
which he so extolled. He tells us that one of the
school exercises in his youth was the symbolic
interpretation of pictures, such as that of an
old man and a young girl (Essai sur les mceurs,
Beuchot 15, p. 219) : " L'un disait, c'est Phiver
et le printemps ; 1'autre, c'est la neige et le feu ;
28 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIRE'S NOVELS
un autre, c'est la rose et Pepine, ou bien, c'est
la force et la f aiblesse : et celui qui avait trouve
le sens le plus eloigne du sujet, 1' application Ja
plus extraordinaire, gagnait le prix."
As early as 1722 (M. 33, p. 60), we find him
writing to Jean Baptiste Rousseau, himself a
notable writer of allegories in the style of Boi-
leau, to explain the allegories in the Henriade:
" Les fictions y sont toutes allegoriques ; nos pas-
sions, nos vertus, nos vices, y sont personnifies."
He defends their use by quoting from Boileau
(M. 8, p. 40). He explains the angel of light
that appeared to Jacques Clement (M. 8, p.
366) : " N"e voyez-vous pas que cette apparition
poetique ne figure autre chose que 1'imagination
egaree d'un moine ? " His predilection for alle-
gory in the novel has already been noted in the
Introduction. He takes Racine fils to task for
the omission of such figures in his poem on Re-
ligion (M. 23, p. 173) : " Tantot je voudrais
qu'il interrogeat la Sagesse eternelle, qui lui
repondrait du haut des cieux; tantot que le
Verbe lui-meme, descendu sur la terre, vint y
confondre Mahomet, Confucius, Zoroastre."
Even with such views, Voltaire was himself not
always prolific enough in poetic figures to suit
VOLTAIBE'8 SYMBOLISM 29
his critics. Just as the Envieux and his wife
say to Zadig that " he has not the good Oriental
style, because he does not make the hills dance
like lambs and the stars descend from the heav-
ens," so Desfontaines and the poet Roi, among
others, took Voltaire to task for the lack of
brilliant images in his poem on the Battle of
Fontenoy. These lovers of allegorical figures
called his poem une froide gazette. Voltaire
replied to them as follows (M. 8, p. 379) : " On
peut, deux mille ans apres la guerre de Troie,
faire apporter par Venus a Enee des annes que
Vulcain a forgees, et qui rendent ce heros invul-
nerable; on peut lui faire rendre son epee par
une divinite, pour la plonger dans le sein de son
ennemi ; tout le conseil des dieux peut s'assem-
bler, tout 1'enfer peut se dechainer; Alecton
peut enivrer tous les esprits des venins de sa
rage; mais ni notre siecle, ni un evenement si
recent, ni un ouvrage si court, ne permettent
guere ces peintures devenues les lieux communs
de la poesie."
Nevertheless this love of figures, of brilliant
images substituted for natural ones, of allegory,
of symbolism in short, pervades all Voltaire's
work. One need only pick up any volume of his
30 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEB'S NOVELS
correspondence to convince oneself of this fact;
his letters are replete with figures. It was only
his good sound common-sense that kept him
from abusing them "in the good Oriental style"
mentioned above.
Before proceeding further, we need to define
allegory. The words means, at bottom, the same
as symbolism ; it is "speaking of one thing
under the image of another." But you cannot
speak of one thing under the image of another
without comparing them, or without having
compared them. The only differences between
allegory and symbolism are conventional, or
they consist in the number of terms compared.
" I am the vine and ye are the branches " is an
allegory but the vine is here the symbol of
Christ, and the branches are symbolic of his
disciples. Allegory has come, however, to be
associated chiefly, if not exclusively, with the
personification of abstractions, as Peace, War,
Strife, etc. But if one were describing the war-
god, and brought under the symbol the Old
Testament Lord of Hosts, leading in person his
chosen people in battle and breaking the ranks
of their enemies, together with the militant
Machiavellian Prince, Frederick the Great, the
VOLTAIRE'S SYMBOLISM 31
imagery is symbolism. If we are to make a dis-
tinction, then, it is this: allegory is the typic-
ally abstract, symbolism is the typically con-
crete. The one is out-of -nature, so to speak ; the
other exists, or may be conceived of as existing,
since it is typical without loss of individuality.
The other reasons for Voltaire's use of sym-
bolism are objective.
In the first place, it furnished him with a
relatively safe medium of carrying out his oft-
reiterated definition of liberty : fari quae sentiat
(M. 33, p. 381). This was no mean advantage
in a country under the bondage of a literary in-
quisition. Voltaire did not wish to spend his
life in the Bastille, nor did he wish to languish
in exile. Symbolism was his only recourse, un-
less he were willing to give up the career of a
man of letters. The latter alternative was not
to be thought of, even if it had been possible for
him to resist his dominant taste. At the time
of the first persecution to which he was sub-
jected, that for his verses about the Regent and
his daughter, he was urged, he says (Lettres sur
(Edipe, M. 2, p. 13), to give up verse-writing.
To all such admonitions in prose and verse he
replied, he tells us, " par des vers." Much later
32 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
he inserted the following significant paragraph
in his Lettres sur (Edipe: "Je me suis done
apergu de bonne heure qu'on ne peut ni resister
a son gout dominant ni vaincre sa destinee."
He preferred his " slavery " in France, as he
often calls his " malheureux metier d'homme de
lettres," to liberty in foreign lands. " Pourquoi
faut-il," he sighs at the time of the persecution
for the English Letters, " pourquoi faut-il subir
les rigueurs de 1'esclavage dans le plus aimable
pays de 1'univers, que 1'on ne peut quitter, et
dans lequel il est si dangereux de vivre ! " Now,
by its very nature, one can hide beneath symbol-
ism as under a shield and deal out blows in all
directions; or at least in as many directions as
there are ideas of which the symbol forms a
part. For example, admitting that Pangloss is
a symbol for all the spoken and written nonsense
in Europe (for the word means " all tongues"),
he can range successively or in curious mixtures
the nonsense of as many individuals as he
chooses under this symbol. And who shall con-
vict him of satire ? Which of his enemies would
for a moment proclaim to the world that he
thought Voltaire was caricaturing him? He
possessed in a remarkable degree the gift of
VOLTAIRE'S SYMBOLISM 33
seeing the ridiculous side of opinions, rather
than of characters, and that is one of the well-
recognized reasons why he did not succeed in
comedy. It is also one of the best reasons for
his success in symbolism. It is by virtue of
certain conformities between the opinions, be-
liefs, and dogmas of the Christian religion and
those of certain Oriental religions that Voltaire
can strike the bigots of France d'une main in-
directe, as Frederick expresses it He says of
i himself through one of his interlocutors (M. 27,
p. 21) : "H semble que vous vouliez parler de
Inos moines sous le nom de bonzes. Vous auriez
rand tort; ne seriex-vous pas un peu malin?"
(That is putting it weakly; he was the most
Un of all men. Everything that he wrote
ras looked upon with suspicion by his enemies,
mse of the subtile and insinuating power of
mggestion oozing out of a thousand pores.
Iverybody knew in his day, and certainly
^verybody knows now, that he had the Christian
jligion, more than Mohammedanism, in mind,
rhen he composed Mahomet. But what choice
lid the pope have, other than to accept his
Dedication of the tragedy? If he had refused
p, Voltaire would have cried: "What! You
34 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIKE'S NOVELS
defend that fanatical religion and its infamous
prophet ? Or do you acknowledge that there is
no difference between that religion and its
prophet on the one hand, and Christianity and
its founder on the other?" How plainly he
discloses his purpose in Mahomet, when he tells
us (M. 17, p. 103), that Mohammed was more
of a Jansenist than anything else. Therefore,
if Mohammed was a Jansenist, the God of
Mohammed was the God of the Jansenists. And
what was the God of the Jansenists ? Voltaire
tells us in his Discours en vers sur I'homme (M.
9, p. 388) what kind of God the partisans of
absolute fatality worshipped:
" Les tristes partisans de ce dogme effroyable
Diraient-ils rien de plus s'ils adoraient le diable ? "
One can easily see how far such association of
ideas can lead, when the author of Zadig can ,
mark here in a couplet the equivalence of God
and the devil.
Voltaire's enemies were not deceived by his I
methods, but they had no proof against him.l
He often defied his enemies to find a single rep-j
rehensible proposition in his works. He couldj
make his challenge with impunity. He wasj
VOLTAIBE'S SYMBOLISM 35
past master in the choice and use of words. He
does not deny the fall of man and the necessity
of redemption; he simply says that human
reason can not prove it. " What have I done,"
he exclaims, when the dogs of persecution bark
at his heels, "what have I done, except to put
revelation above reason ? " He can not ridicule
openly the innocence of our first parents, but
he can ridicule its allegorical meaning under the
Androgynes of Plato, under the symbolism of
Corisandre, Hermaphrodix, Conculix. He
does not deny the existence of the soul inde-
pendent of the body; he does not say that God
has given the faculty of thought to matter in
certain organizations; he simply says that hu-
man reason cannot prove that God could not
have done so. "What have I done," he cries
again when persecuted, "except to give public
confession of my belief in God's omnipotence ? "
And in the Princesse de Babylone he symbolizes
his conception under the form of the phoenix,
and explains what resurrection is (M. 21, p.
392).
Another reason, and not the least important,
for Voltaire's use of symbolism, is its preval-
ence in Oriental literatures, especiallv in tho
36 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIBE'S NOVELS
Bible and in the thousand interpretations of
the dogmas of the Christian religion. Every-
thing in antiquity is allegorical, is symbolical,
he cries ; it would seem that all antiquity spoke
only in order not to be understood. He includes
Grecian mythology in the same class; indeed,
he makes the dreamings of Plato the very foun-
dation of the Christian religion. How was Vol-
taire to explain the double nature in man, the
two natures and the one will of Christ, the
Androgynes of Plato, except by the sodomy of
monasticism, "man by day and woman by
night?" How could Jesus be the son of his
mother and his own father, except by incest,
like that of (Edipus King ? How could Saturn
devour his own children, except as a symbol for
Time ? How could Rome be Babylon, except by
symbolism? How could Peter be a porter, a
fisherman, a rock, and the vicar of Christ, him-
self the vicar of God, except by symbolism?
How can all nations be blessed in the seed of
Abraham, from whom they do not descend?
How can the devil be a serpent? How can
Balaam's ass talk? What is the origin of all
metamorphoses, except the abuse of a metaphor ?
might be multiplied ad in-
VOLTAIRE'S SYMBOLISM 37
VOLTAIBE'S METHOD OF COMPOSITION
Voltaire's method of composition has already
been indicated: it is the raising of individual
experiences into the realm of the typical, with
an anti-religious tendency. When he fights an
individual persecutor, he fights him, not as his
individual enemy, but as the enemy of man-
kind; he becomes for Voltaire the symbol of
persecution, but without losing his individual-
ity. He may appear as a symbol for the devil,
for the God of the Jansenists, for the inquisi-
tion of Rome, or the inquisition of the garde
des sceaux, as the personification of the fero-
cious rapacity of the clergy ; in short, in as many
forms as Voltaire's imagination can create.
Fundamentally Voltaire has but two sets of /
symbols: tolerance and intolerance: love and
hate: wisdom and folly: generosity and envy:
reason and religion: sense and nonsense; there
is a sort of duality in his symbolism, like the
duality of nature. He repeats over and over
the allegory of the garden of Eden. He repre-
sents himself, under the name of his chief char-
acter, in a variety of paradisiacal situations, out
of which he is kicked by some ambitious, envi-
ous, rapacious, or tyrannical brigand. This
38 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
brigand is always Intolerance, under some form
or other, always the Infdme, in some way or
other ; and always, at the bottom of each episode,
incident and character, there is some particular
brigand whom the author has in mind especially.
The general plan of both Zadig and Candide is
this: Voltaire wants his definition of liberty:
fari quae seniiat. That is his Astarte, his
Cunegonde. Whoever interferes with that, the
finest privilege of humanity, is ipso facto ranged
under the symbol of the Infdme, without ceas-
ing, however, as I have already said, to be an
individual persecutor in a given situation. The
only way to fathom Voltaire's symbolism is,
therefore, to keep the type in mind and to trace
the association of ideas by which certain indi-
viduals, with whom he has come into close per-
sonal relations, are subsumed under the type.
CHAPTER III
ZADIG
THE purpose of this chapter is to determine
the provenience of the name of the hero and its
significance, by citing Voltaire's probable au-
thorities and by internal evidence from the
novel.
THE PBOVENIENCE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF
THE NAME
Hammer, apropos of the mystic love-story of
Joseph and Zuleika, explains the name Zadig
as the " Speaker of the truth," from the epithet
given to Joseph when he had cleared himself of
the accusation of Potiphar's wife. Joseph
called upon a child in the cradle to testify for
him. The child, which had never spoken be-
fore, told Potiphar to see whether Joseph's coat
was ripped in front or in back. The coat was
found to be ripped from behind, and this fact
was considered conclusive evidence of the truth
39
40 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
of Joseph's story. Hence, in the manner of the
Orient, of which numerous examples will oc-
cur to any reader of the Old Testament, Joseph
received a new name: He-who-renders-true-
witness, the Speaker-of-the-truth, or the Truth-
teller, as Remy, following Hammer, translates
it. But neither Remy nor Hammer assigned
any reasons for thinking that Voltaire's hero
was named in reminiscence of this episode.
I consider it of great importance to determine
whether this interpretation is correct; for, if it
is, it is bound to have influenced Voltaire in the
whole conduct of his novel.
In the first place, was Voltaire acquainted
with this episode? This question must be an-
swered in the affirmative. We may take it for
granted that he knew practically everything
that had any connection with the Bible; that
was his specialty. The story of Joseph and
Zuleika, as treated by the Persian poets, is
found, in considerable detail, in the Goran, and
we know that Voltaire was well acquainted with
the Mohammedan Bible. He would not have
undertaken his tragedy of Mahomet without in-
vestigating his prophet's Bible. This study
goes back as far as the period preceding his
ZADIG 41
trip to England. While at Riviere-Bourdet
Voltaire, Thieriot, and Mme. de Bernieres gave
themselves up to historical dilettantism. Thie-
riot undertook the compilation of a history of
Mohammed. While in England Voltaire was
asked by his friend to procure him certain
books bearing on the subject. The hunt for one
of them, which proved to be worthless (entitled
Improvement of the Human Reason; M. 33, p.
167), gave to Voltaire an opportunity of show-
ing how anglicized he had become. His letters
to Thieriot are in English, and he speaks of
that " damned book."
It was during his stay in England that he
became acquainted with the translation of the
Goran by Sale; the translation which he ever
afterward used, and which he frequently praises.
He showed to some visitors at Ferney, long after-
wards, this translation of the Goran, annotated
marginally and with numerous slips of paper
all through it for markings (M. 1, pp. 390-392 :
Documents biographiques) . As early as 1734 he
praised Sale's translation of the Goran (M. 27,
p. 318). Therefore there is no reason for Seele,
in his Sources of Zadig, to be uncertain whether
Voltaire was acquainted with the whole Goran.
42 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIBE'S NOVELS
Voltaire could also have got, and probably did
get, knowledge of the episode of Joseph and
Zuleika from Herbelot. We know that he bor-
rowed the Bibliotheque orientate from d'Argen-
son (M. 36, p. 182), and that he kept it during
the period when we may suppose that he was
writing, or gathering material for, his Siecle
de Louis XIV, his Essai sur les mceurs, his
tragedy Semiramis, and his novel Zadig.
In the second place, what reasons are there
for thinking that Voltaire had this epithet in
mind, when he named his hero Zadig ?
There are several reasons which might be
adduced in support of this interpretation of the
name: first, it would seem to be apt for Vol-
taire's symbolism; second, there are evidences
of it in the character of some of the episodes;
third, the Providence which the story of Joseph
illustrates seems to be the Providence of the
novel. Let us consider these points in their
order.
THE APTNESS OF THE EPITHET FOE VOLTAIEE'S
SYMBOLISM
Without giving Voltaire credit for a very
profound knowledge of Oriental literatures, we
ZADIG 43
must acknowledge that he grasped quickly the
fundamental spirit of those literatures. " Every-
thing is figurative," he says repeatedly, " every-
thing is allegorical in the East." It would
seem that these people spoke only in order not
to be understood. This character of Oriental
thought was to him the secret of the abuse of the
Bible in later centuries: the figure was taken
for the letter, and the letter for the figure, to
suit the ambitious schemes of a few leaders of
the new sect of Christianity. The Jews called
a just man the son of God (M. 27, p. 90) ; in
that sense Jesus was the son of God. But how
that figure of speech has been perverted and
made the instrument of the " most cowardly and
most detestable of all superstitions"! We can
see, then, how such an epithet as the "Truth-
teller " in a novel of the Orient would appeal to
Voltaire. He aimed to be the " Truth-teller "
par excellence. He was the ministre de la
verite, as Frederick called him. He appeals to
Venus Urania, verite sublime, as he apostro-
phizes the goddess. All the persecutions to
which he was subjected came from his message
of truth, as he saw it. And yet he rarely spoke
his message of truth except in symbolic words
44 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIRE'S NOVELS
and figures. He could not do otherwise. To
tell his message of truth about the Bible in the
plain straightforward French prose, which he
could handle with such conciseness and clear-
ness, would be paving the way to a funeral
pyre ; to tell it in the manner of the Orient, in
figures, in allegories, in allusions, in innuendos,
in equivocal phraseology : what was that but the
manner that Voltaire assumed in nearly all his
publications, before his residence at the gates of
Geneva? He had learned early in the school
of experience to fight from covert, to bide his
time, to strike swiftly and escape, to act the
blind man and the deaf man on occasion.
INTERNAL EVIDENCE FROM THE NOVEL
There are episodes in the novel that point to
the meaning of Zadig as the " Truth-teller."
At bottom, the episode of Joseph and Zuleika
illustrates a Solomonic judgment. Joseph's in-
nocence is established by a clever device. Sim-
ilar devices are met with in the novel, such as
the broken tablet, the love of two brothers for
their father, the love of two Magians for a
young girl, the debt, etc. The episode of the
ZADIG 45
Chien and the Cheval is also a case in point,
and needs to be considered in detail.
THE DOG AND THE HOESE
This episode illustrates, among other things,
the Oriental manner of telling the truth and the
dangers attending it. The common proverb in
the Orient, according to Herbelot (Vol. I, p.
581), used as an excuse by the people who are
afraid of getting into trouble for knowing and
for saying too much, is : Je n'ai vu ni le chameau
ni le chamelier; ou bien, je nai vu ni le chameau
ni son petit. The story which gave rise to this
proverb must be considered the immediate
source of Voltaire's episode. In his studies in
the sciences, in history, in philosophy, Voltaire
was afraid of saying too much. The premature
publication of his materials for the Siecle de
Louis XIV aroused persecutions because of the
author's remarks about the court of Kome (M.
35, p. 361). His Lettres philosophiques, espe-
cially his remarks about Pascal and Locke,
caused him to be excommunicated and burned,
as he calls the decree of the Parliament against
his publication. He was afraid of saying too
much in his competitive essay for the prize
46 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
offered by the Academy of Sciences, because the
philosophy of Descartes still ruled at Paris.
Mirepoix especially persecuted Voltaire for say-
ing, with Locke, that God could have given to
organized matter the faculty of thought, just as
matter is organized to have sensations. Vol-
taire's aim was to account naturally for the
fabulous being called the soul, just as he would
account naturally for the fabulous being called
the devil. These are two phases of one and the
same question. The Christian religion posits
the fall of man, into whose body the devil en-
tered, as an allegory of the evil in the world and
an explanation of the astonishing contradictions
in man. Voltaire replied, in his remarks on
Pascal, that one might just as well say that the
dog that caresses and bites has a double nature,
or that all horses were once in paradise until
one of them ate some oats and caused the whole
species to be condemned to a life of suffering.
j Thus Voltaire is persecuted, like Zadig, even
\ by beings which do not exist.
Thia episode of the griffon is similar to the
one which we are considering. Everybody is
speaking about the griffon, although nobody
knows anything about it, not even whether it
ZADIG 47
exists. Voltaire frequently refers to the Mosaic
law prohibiting the eating of the griffon, the
ixion (M. 25, p. 65 ; M. 18, p. 124, etc.). These
animals must have disappeared from the face
of the earth, if they ever existed. Voltaire else-
where (M. 9, p. 427) uses the name griffon as
celui qui griffonne, and Cador uses it here in
the sense of celui qui a des griffes. Zadig has,
he says, many griffons in his poultry yard, and
does not eat them. He refers to the cock, as is
evident from Voltaire's use of the word in his
reply to the criticism of the Abbe Foucher (M.
27, p. 435) : Ne tuons jamais le coq, etc. It is
simply one of Voltaire's numerous illustrations
of the persecutions to which one is subjected in
the name of beings which nobody understands,
and the very existence of which can not be
proven.
The episode of the Dog and the Horse is, like
that of the griffon, an outgrowth of Voltaire's
English Letters. :Mirepoix had persecuted him
for saying that our faculties developed like
those of the other animals, by use, by experi-
ence. Voltaire's argument tended to insinuate
that if man had an immortal soul, then a dog
had one also, or a flea, if you will. There is
48 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
something divine about a flea, he says; it can
jump fifty times its length. Thus this episode
is, first of all, an allegory of the way we see:
how we judge form, size, distance. Voltaire
was the first to report in France the theories of
light of Newton and the experiments of Chesel-
don (M. 18, p. 402 ff.). The latter proved, by
operating on a youth for cataract that the image
formed on the retina by an object did not enable
us, by itself, to see that object as it was.
Reaumur, who seems to be ridiculed by Voltaire
in the introductory paragraphs of this episode,
performed a similar experiment in France, but
the fruits of it were lost to science because the
operator made no experiments and allowed no
one else to make them.
There are probably other allusions in the epi-
sode, a few of which may be indicated here.
In speaking of his studies for the Siecle de
Louis XIV (M. 33, p. 513), Voltaire says that
he is like a painter who looks at objects a little
differently from other men, noticing lights and
shades which escape inexperienced eyes. That
is precisely the faculty that Zadig has acquired.
Voltaire arrived at the knowledge of the Man
with the Iron Mask during this period. The
ZADIG 49
daughter of the Regent had secured from her
father, by what a price ! the secret, or what pur-
ported to be the secret. Voltaire had, it would
seem, been persecuted by the Regent for " what
he had seen," namely, the incest and debauchery
of the Regent. In view of the name of the
King, Moabdar, reminiscent of the mere des
Moabites of Voltaire's early satires, it is prob-
able that the episode of the Dog and the Horse *
is symbolical of the Regent and his daughter.
The episode of the escaped prisoner would then
be explainable as a reference to the Man with
the Iron Mask.
Another allusion in the episode is Voltaire's
characterization of the old due de Mirepoix as a
cheval. His accoutrements are also as precious
as those of the cheval du roi des rois; he was in
every sense un opulent fripon, and in every
sense a cheval of the King. Voltaire arrived at
his name by the following equations: Chiron =
Preceptor of Achilles; Achilles = King ; Mire-
poix = Preceptor of King; Mirepoix = Chiron.
But Chiron was a horse with the head of a man,
while Mirepoix had no head; therefore Mire-
poix = cheval (cf. M. 36, p. 275).
Voltaire refers in the same way to the poet
4
50 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIBE'S NOVELS
Roi, who was chevalier de I'ordre de saint
Michel, i. e., cheval. de saint Michel, i. e.,
cheval, not roi, but at most the cheval du rot. 1
1 There is much in the correspondence of Voltaire at
this time about a chien and a chiennc. Mile. Quinault
had given to Voltaire the subject of the Enfant prodigue,
which he composed, he tells us, to serve as a reply to the
impertinent Epitres of Jean Baptiste Eousseau. It is,
therefore, by a figure common to Voltaire, the child of
the poet and the actress (M. 34, p. 54, 55, 183, 184).
Great precautions are taken that there be no clique to
prevent its success. Voltaire does not wish it to be known
that he is the author; he has his reasons, he says, but
he fails to disclose them. Voltaire refers to his comedy
as his petit chien noir (M. 34, p. 142). He writes to
Mile. Quinault (M. 34, p. 558>) that his petits chiens noirs
are called Zamore and Alzire (the names of the hero and
the heroine of his tragedy of Aleire, and evidently re-
garded as the offspring of the original chien, the Enfant
prodigue). He carries out the figure (M. 35, p. 48):
Zamore et Aleire vous saluent a quatre pattes. In his
letter of October 19, 1736 (M. 34, p. 150 f.), he calls his
two black dogs chien and chienne, brother and sister, who
are to go on producing from incest to incest. Other refer-
ences are (M. 35, p. 176) : "Alzire est grosse de Zamore.
Voulez-vous que le premier-n6 s'appelle Kamiref" And
(M. 35, p. 227) : "J'aurai 1'honneur de vous envoyer un
Eamire et vous nous donnerez la merveille des chiens que
vous promettez. " He feels that Zulime must be made
better pour depayser le monde. He says (M. 35, p. 456) :
"Nous avons dfija nomm6 les deux enfants de vos chiens
noirs, 1 'un Eamire, et 1 'autre Zulime. Mais j 'ai peur
que cela ne ressemble aux gentilshommes mine's de ce
payg-ci (i. e., Brussels), qui se font appeler Votre Altesse;
ZADIQ 51
OTHEB EPISODES WHICH ILLUSTEATE SOLO-
MONIC JUDGMENTS
The other episodes which illustrate Solomonic
judgments come under the relations of Zadig to
Moabdar's court or to the Arabian tribes of
Setoc. The first one of this nature is the decis-
ion of the question, to whom the prize of virtue
belongs. Voltaire had already indicated in his
Discours en vers sur I'homme (M. 9, p. 388 f.,
p. 423), who was entitled to be called virtuous.
That title belonged to Pucelle, who gave to his
younger brother the fortune that his mother had
il faut que 1'on ait fait une grande fortune pour donner
ainsi son nom. "
It is not easy to determine just what Voltaire meant
by this sort of figure. As offspring of Voltaire's genius,
his works were brother and sister, and if they kept on
producing from incest to incest, the thought is analogous
to the charge made by Rousseau against Voltaire (Epitre
d Thalie, CEuvres de Jean Baptiste Sousseau, Nouvelle
Edition, Bruxelles, 1743, Vol. 3, p. 467) :
' ' Loin tout rimeur enfl6 de beaux passages
Qui sur lui seul moulant ses personnages
Veut qu 'ils aient tous autant d 'esprit que lui,
Et ne nous peint que soi-muinc en autrui. "
It is certain that there is some connection between Bous-
seau and the chien or chienne of Voltaire's correspon-
dence and the episode in Zadig; that is already obvious
from the purpose Voltaire had in composing the Enfant
prodigue. It is probable that Mile. Quinault immediately
52 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIBE'S NOVELS
deprived him of. This episode is found in
Zadig, with slight modifications and with an
obvious application to religion. It is a question
of the love of two sons for their father. Zadig
gives the prize to the one who has aided his sis-
ter. Voltaire wished to decide the question
| over which the Jansenists and the Molinists
wrangled, as to who loved God best. His de-
cision establishes the superiority of good works
over vain monuments, as an indication of one's
love for the author of one's being. t A similar
question is decided by him in reference to the
recognized Voltaire as the author of Zadig by means of
this episode, for he alludes to the "black dog" only in
his letters to her. Voltaire wrote to d'Argental (M. 36,
p. 534; Oct. 10, 174&), that he did not wish to pass
for the author of Zadig; why should people mention his
name in that connection f "Quinault, Quinault-comique
. . . ne cesse de dire que j 'en suis 1 'auteur. Comme elle
n'y voit rien ne mal, elle le dit sans croire me nuire;
mais les coquins, qui veulent y voir du mal, en abusent."
If Mile. Quinault saw no harm in the episode, she must
have referred it to Voltaire's Enfant prodigue. When
this comedy appeared in published form, it was so muti-
lated by the publishers that Voltaire, by a figure common
to him, says that it is lame, so lame that it can hardly
walk (M. 34, p. 525, p. 531). In that respect it is like
the chienne de la reine. As it has given birth to a numer-
ous progeny it can also be compared to the chienne de la
reine, qui a fait depuis peu des chiens.
ZADIG 53
two Magians who claim a woman whom they
have instructed in their mystic love ; she belongs
to the one who will bring up her child in the
duties of friendship and citizenship.
Voltaire had given the title of virtuous to
Pelisson, who defended Fouquet from the
depths of his prison. This appears also in '
Zadig. The King had disgraced his prime min-
ister, and Zadig alone speaks well of him.
Voltaire gives the title of virtuous to ETor-
mand, to Cochin, whose eloquence protected the
orphan. He does not give it to the indolent
Germont, who fears to speak for his friend when
Sejanus oppresses (reference to Thieriot, whose
luke-warmness in the period of the Voltairo-
manie Voltaire could hardly forgive) ; nor to
the babbling Griffon, whose mercenary pen
made an insipid libel instead of a jurist's brief
(reference to Mannory, at the time of Voltaire's
demeles with the poet Roi and Desfontaines).
" Zadig proves, just as Voltaire proved in
all his works, the puerility of religious dis-
putes and the folly of attaching importance
to religious ceremonies. Two parties had v
quarreled for 1500 years about the manner
of entering the temple of Mithra. Voltaire
54 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIBE'S NOVELS
shows by the date here that he has Christianity
in mind. He says (M. 2T, p. 38), that Chris-
tianity is the only religion in the world in
which, for more than 1400 years, there has been
an almost continuous series of persecutions on
account of theological arguments'.
There is probably a reference here to Vol-
taire's manner of entering the French Academy.
One of the virulent satires current at this time
was the Discours prononce a la porte de I' Aca-
demic, in which Voltaire was scurrilously treated.
Voltaire had failed in several attempts to enter
the Temple of the Sun, and he desired to enter
now par la grande porte. In other words, he
wanted to enter the French Academy like Zadig :
a pieds joints.
The other illustrations of the wisdom of Solo-
mon are chiefly under the various episodes con-
nected with Setoc. Because Zadig has slain a
jealous fool, Cletofis, he is sold into slavery.
This is allegorical for the servitude of a man
of letters in France, of which Voltaire com-
plains so often in his correspondence. The only
way to break his chains is gradually to enlighten
his master, who was ignorant rather than
wicked. Zadig begins his work almost at once.
ZADIG 65
His master has paid less for him. than for his
valet. When Setoc is obliged to apportion the
burdens of a camel upon the backs of his slaves,
he laughs to see them walk with body bent for-
ward. Zadig informs him of the reason. He
tells him about the simplest physical laws, such
as the law of equilibrium, of specific gravity.
The allusion is, of course, to Voltaire's Ele-
ments de la philosophie de Newton, with the
famous law of gravitation which the French
were so slow in accepting. It is Voltaire in the
bondage of the garde des sceaux, the famous
d'Aguesseau, who refused his approbation for
the Elements, and who refused to give permis-
sion to print to the author of a novel in which
there was a heretic, unless said heretic should
be converted in the last chapter! It is quite
possible that Voltaire is punning on his name
(seau = sot) and on his function (garde des
sceaux = garde des sots), in the name Setoc.
Voltaire often laments that the simplest laws of -
science were unknown to his countrymen until
the publication of his work. The following is
a typical example (M. 27, p. 188) : " II y a cent
mille ames dans Paris qui, en soufflant le feu
de leurs cheminees, n'ont jamais seulement
56 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIBE'S NOVELS
pense a la mecanique par laquelle Pair entrant
dans leur soufflet, ferme ensuite la soupape qui
lui est attachee. . . . Le nombre est tres petit
de ceux qui cherchent a s'instruire des ressorts
de leur corps et de leur pensee. De la vient
qu'ils mettent souvent 1'un et 1'autre entre les
mains des charlatans." This is true of the
Seigneur Ogul, whose slaves seek a basilisk
which they intend to cook in rose water in order
to cure him of an indigestion. The Seigneur
Ogul has promised to marry the slave who shall
first find him a basilisk. "Son medecin, qui
n'a que peu de credit aupres de lui quand il
digere bien, le gouverne despotiquement quand
il a trop mange" (M. 21, p. 81). The allusion
is probably to the King, whose illness at Metz
caused so much excitement in court circles. The
doctor-confessor of the King prevailed upon him
to dismiss his mistress, Mme. de Chateauroux,
in order to appease the wrath of heaven and thus
be cured of his ailment. The name Ogul is
probably an anagramme for Gulo (since the
Seigneur Ogul is a glutton), with a reminis-
cence of Mogul. Thus everything, even to the
basilisk (the "little king" curer), points to the
Seigneur Louis XV. Zadig teaches this ignor*
ZADIG 67
ant gourmand the virtues of the medicine bag,
i. e., the value of exercise and sobriety, as the
only king-curers. Voltaire had already treated
this topic in his English Letters (M. 22, p. 50).
He explains how the idea of miraculous cures
arose. Sickness was observed to increase at the
full moon ; therefore the moon was the cause of
it. A sick man, who found himself better after
having eaten lobsters, gave rise to the belief
that they purified the blood because they were
red when boiled !
One of the first things that Zadig teaches
S6toc is how to recover a debt from a Hebrew,
without having any proof of the indebtedness.
The money had been counted out to the Hebrew
on a large stone, and Zadig makes the stone tes-
tify for him. Since the Hebrew knows where
the stone is, the money must have been paid to
him. He is condemned to be bound to the stone,
without food or drink, until the money is paid.
The Hebrew soon disgorges, and Zadig and the
stone enjoy great renown in the desert. The
Hebrew who receives loans on the stone and who
appropriates everything he can as soon as there
are no witnesses to the transaction is the Church,
from the time of Pope Gregory down. Voltaire
58 SYMBOLISM OP VOLTAIKE'S NOVELS
was the first to raise his voice, he tells us (M.
18, p. 441), against the pretensions of the
clergy. The way to make them disgorge is to
bind them to the stone ; if the stone, Peter, is in
the desert, they will pay rather than be bound
to it ; if it is in heaven, they will pay with even
greater celerity rather than be sent thither.
Pope Gregory's canonization in the eighteenth
century was fresh in Voltaire's mind at this
time, when he was composing the Essai sur les
mceurs (cf. Beuchot, 16, p. 89). The Pope, he
notes (ibid., p. 84), had sent the following mes-
sage to Eudolph, Duke of Suabia: Petra dedit,
Petrus diadema RodolpJio.
It is probable that there is some experience of
Voltaire at the bottom of the episode. The
Marquis de Luchet relates that Voltaire had lent
some money to a man who refused to pay him
because the poet had neglected to take the pre-
caution of having witnesses to the transaction,
and had nothing in writing to prove his claim.
Many people are sueing him, he says (M. 34, p.
88), for debts long since paid, in the hope that
he has lost his receipts in his numerous voyages.
That is especially true of Jore, the libraire du
clerge, publisher of the Lettres philosophiques
ZADIG 59
who tried to make Voltaire pay what he would
have gained if the edition had not been seized.
He was thrown into the Bastille until he should
give up the edition. It is possible that the Bas-
tille is the famous stone to which the bad credi-
tor was to be bound until he disgorged.
Setoc adores the stars because they are so
brilliant and so far away. ^Zadig lights a num-
ber of candles and adores them in the presence
of his master. Setoc penetrates the significance
of the action of his slave and adores, from then
on, the maker of the stars. Voltaire is alluding
to the idolatrous practices of the Christians in
the adoration of images, etc., as shown in the
Dictionnaire philosophique (M. 17, p. 61,
under Adorer) : " Dans d'autres pays, il faut a
midi allumer des flambeaux de cire, qu'on
avait en abomination dans les premiers temps,"
and a convent, in which this cult of candles
should be abolished would cry out that the light
of the faith was extinguished and that the world
was coming to an end.
Zadig also puts an end to the burning of
widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands,
an abuse which exists simply because it is
60 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
Ancient. Voltaire makes the necessary rap-
prochement between the devotes of Malabar and
the devotes of France (M. 24, p. 247, also Precis
du Siede de Louis XV, M. 15, p. 327, and Bs-
sai sur les Moeurs, Beuchot, 15, p. 79), which
explains this episode. The former destroy
their bodies, the latter give up legitimate pleas-
ures and subject themselves to needless priva-
tions, and both act contrary to the purpose of
nature; both are dominated by the vain idea
that these bodies of theirs will arise more beau-
tiful than before. Let us consider this episode
in its relation to Voltaire's literary activity in
France.
THE EPISODE OF ALMONA
This episode is directed first of all against the
Jansenists, who would destroy all passions in
man, except that of religious fanaticism. Every
natural impulse towards the enjoyment of the
senses was for the Jansenites a mortal sin (cf.
M. 21, p. 275). In the second place, this same
tendency was manifested in the monastic sys-
tem, by which men and women dissociated
themselves from the activities for which they
were created, and buried themselves alive, so to
speak. Voltaire had no patience with such/
ZADIG 61
abuses. He continually raises his voice against
them. Ever since his return from England he
had directed his attacks against the Jansenists:
in his English letters, in the Mondain, in the
Discours en vers sur I'homme. In his fifth Dis-
cours (Sur la nature du plaisir), he uses a fig-
ure quite similar to the destruction by fire in
the episode of Almona. He admires, he says,
and does not pity, a heart that chains its de-
sires, " et s'arrache au genre humain pour Dieu
qui nous fit naitre . . . et brulant pour son
Dieu d'un amour devorant, fuit les plaisirs
permis pour un plaisir plus grand." But he
does protest against the intolerance of such
people. Let them burn themselves if they wish,
but not make other people burn themselves, nor
despise in their hearts those whom they leave
behind. Such people are less the friends of
God than the enemies of mankind. This ridicu-
lous master of the new stoics (i. e., Pascal),
wishes to destroy one's being, deprive one of
one's nature. Voltaire reminds him and his
followers of the daughters of Pelias, who, think-
ing to rejuvenate^ him, cut him up and boiled
him, but could not bring him to life again.
That is symbolic of the Jansenists, the poet
62 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
cries; they wish to change man, and they de-
stroy him.
Thus Almona represents the victim of this
false conception of the Jansenists, who drew it,
as all Christians have drawn it, from the prom-
ises of Christ, that whoever should lose his life
shall find it, and whoever would__sye_hi5 life
shall lose it. It was this^jFalse conception of
self-renunciation which sent so many (Jnristians
rejoicing to the funeral pyres of martyrdom and
which filled the monasteries and the convents.
Voltaire wished to belittle their motives, and,
in general, he undoubtedly was not far wrong.
They wished to attract attention to themselves,
to show that they were better than other people.
They wished to enjoy the consideration which
attends the odor of sanctity. Mme. Dorfise, the
Prude, in Voltaire's comedy of that name, acts
from such motives. The same is true of Baba-
bec and the fakirs (M. 21, p. 103) : "Bababec
perdait son credit dans le peuple ; les femmes ne
venaient plus le consulter: il quitta Omri, et
reprit ses clous pour avoir de la consideration."
The reason why the women of Malabar burn
themselves is that it is the custom, and one
would lose caste in not conforming to it (M. 18,
ZADIG 63
p. 96; article on Suicide, published in 1739),
just as it the custom in Japan for a man who
has heen insulted to open his own vitals, and
his opponent must do likewise or be forever
dishonored. The Christian renegade Pelle-
grinus burned himself in public for the same
reason that a fool among us sometimes dresses
up as an Armenian, in order to attract attention
to himself (M. 18, p. 37). But that is nothing,
Voltaire adds, in comparison with the 100,000
Europeans who have been burned by the Inqui-
sition for the greater glory of God and the sal-
vation of their immortal souls, and all for dog-
mas which nobody understands.
yZadig convinces Setoc that it is ruinous to the
state for widows to burn themselves ; they might
better give useful citizens to it. This reason is
one of the most frequent in Voltaire's works.
The following is a typical reference (M. 23, p.
504) : " Dans nos climats il nait plus de males
que de femelles, done il ne f aut pas f aire mourir
les femelles: or il est clair que c'est les faire
mourir pour la societe que de les enterrer dans
nos cloitres, ou elles sont perdues pour la race
presente, et ou elles aneantissent les races fu-
tures." Note the equivocal use of faire mourir
44 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
and enterrer Us filles. The latter figure sug-
gests to Voltaire the comparison of nuns to des
terres incultes; il faut cultiver Us unes et Us
autres is his advice (Dialogue entre un philo-
sophe et un controleur general des finances, M.
23, p. 504).
The particular allusion in this episode of
Almona is probably to Voltaire's Epitre to the
Marquise de Eupelmonde, the widow with whom
he traveled to Holland in 1722 (M. 9, p. 357
if.). Of her Duvernet says: "Elle joignait a
une ame pleine de candeur et un penchant ex-
treme pour la tendresse une grande incertitude
sur ce qu'elle devait croire." She confided her
doubts to Voltaire. To save her from the fate
of the devotes of Malabar and the devotes of
France, he composed the Epitre, successively
known as the Epitre a Julie, Epitre a TJranie,
and Le Pour et Le Contre. The Kehl editors
speak of it as follows (M. 9, p. 357) : This work
contains the principal reproaches against the
Christian religion and a refutation of the argu-
ments of the devots persuades et Us devots po-
litiques.
The gist of the Epitre is this: there are no
horrors beyond the grave for the just; God
ZADIG 65
d0es not demand the sacrifice of our being, but
the use of our talents. All homage is received
by God, but he demands none, and none honors
him. The pitiless Jansenist will find less clem-
ency at his throne, despite his sacrifices, than
the just man.
There was the menace of great danger in the
publication of this JEpitre in 1732. Langlois,
the secretary of the Chancellor d'Aguesseau,
when asked his opinion of it, told his master
that Voltaire ought to be put where he would
never again have the opportunity to use pen and
ink. M. de Vintimille, Archbishop of Paris,
and famous for his gourmandise, complained
strongly to H. Herault, lieutenant general de
police. Voltaire fit le mort, as one editor ex-
presses it ; he took no notice of the lenten refu-
tations of his work. He denied to the Chancel-
lor that he was the author of it; he had heard
it recited, he said, by the Abbe de Chaulieu.
The authorities were not deceived, but they had
no case against him. /
In Zadig Voltaire seems to have connected this
episode with all his other publications against the
Jansenists, especially his Lettres philosophiques.
The friends of Pascal were revolted that Voltaire
66 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIKE'S NOVELS
should make fun of their master's ideas about re-
ligion and about poetry. Voltaire frequently
laughs at Pascal's examples of poetic beauty : ~bel
asire, merveille de nos jours, fatal laurier, etc.
That expression of bel astre, and Voltaire's re-
marks about Newton's law of gravitation, which
Voltaire called attraction, and which the ignorant
people of France took for the occult ideas of
antiquity, are the sources of the form in which
the accusation against Zadig is cast. He is ac-
cused of horrible blasphemies against the heav-
enly bodies, for which he must be burned, as well
as for having diverted from the priestly coffers
the spoils of the widows. So Voltaire's Lettres
philosophiques were condemned to be lacerated
and burned by the Parliaments of Paris and
Rouen, but Voltaire does not report it that way ;
he uses a figure of speech. It is he, the author,
who has been excommunicated and burned at
Paris and Eouen; if that continues he will be
burned twelve times (M. 33, p. 442). He fled
to Cirey, which he calls a desert ; in other words,
he is in Arabie deserte, which he will soon trans-
form into Arabie heureuse, the paradise of the
Mondain, the philosophic tendency of which is
the same as that of the episode which we are
ZADIG 67
considering. In this infdme persecution pour
un livre he is sustained by the friendship of
Mme. du Chatelet (M. 33, p. 426; May, 1Y34),
which surpasses by far the rage of his enemies.
He seems to have thought of her and of Mme.
de Richelieu as his "Almonas," since they
finally secured the cessation of this persecution.
"Voila Mme. de Richelieu qui va enfin etre
presentee. Elle ne quittera point votre garde
des sceaux qu'elle n'ait obtenu la paix " (M. 33,
p. 542). The manner in which Almona puts
the persecutors to shame is simply a vicious
dig at the clergy, with the Archbishop of Paris
at their head. It is no more to be taken seri-
ously than the titles which she gives to the Arch-
bishop (M. 21, Fils aine de la grande Ourse,
frere du Taureau, cousin du grand Chieri). It
is in the same style as the manner in which
Zadig appeases the old Magian Yebor, by the
gift of a maid of honor a laquelle il avait fait
un enfant. The old Bishop of Mirepoix had
made his way in the world through the influence
of titled devotes, whose confessor he was. Such
hypocrites, says Voltaire (M. 18, p. 350), al-
ways had a little serail of six or seven old
devotes, who had been discarded by their lov-
68 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
ers. So here with the priests of the stars ; they
are susceptible of no influence except that of
carnal lust.
, My third reason for thinking that Voltaire
had the epithet of the " Speaker-of-the-truth "
in mind in naming his hero Zadig is drawn
from the philosophic tendency of the novel. As
applied to Joseph the epithet seems peculiarly
appropriate for the bearer of Voltaire's message
about Providence, whose ways are not our ways.
The story of the Patriarch is, in fact, an epi-
tome of the Providence of Christianity. It is
the lover of individual men and particular na-
tions, at the expense of other individual men
and other nations. Joseph was sent into Egypt,
according to the Biblical account, to prepare a
place for his brethren, that is, he was sent there
by the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to
enslave a whole nation (the Egyptians, who
became, through Joseph, the slaves of the
Pharao), and all for the sake of a "vagabond
race, sullied with all the crimes known to the
history of human folly."
Joseph was sold into slavery by his brethren
from envy; here appeared the role of the En-
meux, as it appears in Zadig, and as it appeared
ZADIG 69
in Voltaire's life. The heroes experience sever-
ally all its potentialities, even to the slavery
motif, which is so often reflected in Voltaire's
correspondence. Joseph was finally united to ,
his Zuleika, Zadig to his Astarte, and Voltaire
finally bowed to the Church in order to get into
the French Academy. Each hero had emerged
triumphantly from all his trials and tribula-
tions. Rousseau and Desfontaines were in their
graves, Roi was the execration of all honorable
men, Mirepoix was sent into semi-exile, in order
to relieve him of the danger of choosing badly
among the servants of God for the posts of honor
in the French capital (M. 36, p. 357), while
Voltaire, covered with the aegis of the vicar
of Christ, had become one of the Immortals,
historiographer of France, and gentilhomme
ordinaire de la chambre du roi, with the privi-
lege of selling his patent (which brought him
about 60,000 francs) and retaining the title.
And how had he accomplished it all ? Not dif- 1
ferently from the symbolism of Zadig, with the f
hero's submission to Providence, not differently
from the Patriarch Joseph, with his riddles.
The Princesse de Navarre and the favor of the
Pompadour on the one hand, and Voltaire's
70 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIRE'S NOVELS
submission to the Church on the other, had ac-
complished what all his serious work, his real
services, had failed to accomplish.
In Voltaire's first open letter to prove his
orthodoxy (M. 36, p. 191), Voltaire proclaims
his love of religion, "a religion which makes
one great family of all men, and whose practices
are founded on tolerance and good works."
Zadig does the same thing at Bassora (M. 21, p.
61) : "II lui paraissait que 1'univers etait une
Nj grande famille qui se rassemblait a Bassora."
* He convinces the representatives of all sects, all
of whom are merchants, that they are, at bottom,
of one faith; they adore the Maker of the Uni-
verse, and not those who have constituted them-
selves his prophets and instructed mankind in
his name. Voltaire had already given expres-
sion to a similar thought in Holland, whither he
had gone with Mme. de Rupelmonde (M. 33,
p. 74). The cities of Holland, like Bassora,
were great commercial centers, and like the Bas-
sora of Zadig all cults seemed to flourish side
by side. " Je vois des ministres calvinistes, des
arminiens, des sociniens, des rabbins, des ana-
baptistes, qui parlent tous a merveille, et qui,
en verite, ont tous raison." So Zadig speaks of
ZADIQ 71
the sects of Bassora; he tells them that they
are all agreed, all are right, without knowing it.
This episode was probably suggested to Vol-
taire by his letter above mentioned and by his
remarks while at The Hague. It is probable
that Bassora is meant to be a linguistic equiva-
lent for the Netherlands.
Voltaire's idea of a religion which made one
great family of all men was not the religion
which could open the doors of the Academy to
him. In order that the grace efficace should
descend, to speak in the phraseology which he
likes to use, he had to give evidence of his love
of the Christian religion as understood and
practiced in his day. That Voltaire accom-
plished by dedicating Mahomet to the Pope
and by a profession of faith and orthodoxy, in
his open letter to the Jesuits.
In addition to the reasons which have already
been given in support of the interpretation of
the name Zadig as the " Truth-teller," there are
others of less significance, to which, however,
attention might be called. He writes to Cide-
ville about his poem on the Battle of Fontenoy,
in reference to the Marechal de Noailles, who,
having no command (although he ranked the
72 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIRE'S NOVELS
Marechal de Saxe, the commanding officer),
was obliged to look on while others won imper-
ishable glory (M. 36, p. 366) : "Les deux vers
qui expriment qu'il n'est point jaloux et qu'il
ne regarde que 1'interet de la France sont un
petit trait de politique, si ce n'en est pas un de
poesie; et ce sont precisement ces verites qui
donnent a penser a un lecteur judicieux. Ces
traits si eloignes des lieux communs, et ces allu-
sions aux f aits qu'on ne doit pas dire hautement,
mais qu'on doit f aire entendre ; ce sont la, dis-je,
ces petites finesses qui plaisent aux homines
comme vous, et qui echappent a ceux qui ne
sont que gens de lettres."
Apropos of a problem which he has stated in
the form of a riddle, as to which of the three
princesses which the Queen of Poland has given
to reigning houses of Europe is the most vir-
tuous and brings the greatest happiness to her
subjects, he says (M. 36, p. 495): "Kien ne
prouve mieux combien il est difficile de savoir
au juste la verite dans ce monde ; et puis, mon-
sieur, les personnes qui la savent le mieux sont
tou jours celles qui la disent le moins."
Perhaps nowhere in Zadig does Voltaire show
more clearly his method of attesting the truth
ZADIG 73
In the form of equivocal phrases than in the
address of the hero to the judges after the cheval
du roi des rois et la chienne de la reine have
been found. Zadig has been fined four hundred
ounces of gold for having seen (with his judg-
ment) what he had not seen (with his eyes).
He propitiates his judges and satirizes the juris-
prudence of France in the following speech, full
of equivoques: "Etoiles de justice, abimes de
science, miroirs de verite, qui avez la pesanteur
du plomb, la durete du fer, 1'eclat du diamant,
et beaucoup d'affinite avec 1'or," etc. The equi-
voques are charming, and none the less doubly
edged with satire. Voltaire had become dis- x
gusted with the jurisprudence of France in his
early apprenticeship in a lawyer's office. He
lauds Desbarreaux, who threw the documents
of a lawsuit into the fire and paid the plaintiff
the amount for which the suit was brought. He
reproduces a similar episode in Zadig. He
likewise lauded his friend and guardian angel
d'Argental, who, disgusted with the absurd
forms and barbarity of the law, gave up his
charge of conseiller au parlement and retained
only the title of conseiller d'honneur. It was fit-
ting, Voltaire said, that he should bear the title
of his estate !
V
74 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
The epithet of the "Witness-bearer" or the
" Truth-teller " was also given by the Arabs to
Aboubecre, father-in-law of Mohammed, to
Jesus Christ, to the Virgin Mary, and to Ai'cha,
the only "virgin" wife of Mohammed. They
all refer to the attestation of revealed truth.
Aboubecre attested the truth of Mohammed's
mission, of the divine origin of the Goran, of
the Prophet's journey on his horse Borac
through the heavens, etc. His daughter, the
Pucelle, obtained the title by attesting the au-
thenticity of various traditions regarding Mo-
hammed, just as the Virgin Mary obtained it
by attesting the divine birth and mission of
Jesus Christ. So Zadig really gets the title, it
would seem, from his interview with the angel
Jesrad ;j at least not until then is he able to com-
pass his ends. It is a strong testimony to the
power of revelation over the minds of his coun-
trymen, as indeed over the whole human race.
In all these applications of the name it is a
question of a new cult. Voltaire could take the
epithet seriously. His message to the world, or
to be more explicit, to France, was in the inter-
est of a new cult : the cult of reason. Voltaire
likened himself to Jesus Christ, persecuted for
ZADIG 75
truth and righteousness (in his letter to Mire-
poix, M. 36, p. 193 if.). After such an example
of submission to tribulation and death in the
interests of truth, Voltaire can not complain.
It i$ true, however, he ajlds, that one should
defend oneself; not for the vain satisfaction of
*
humbling and silencing an opponent, mais pour
rendre gloire a la verite^
These are some of the reasons for thinking
that Voltaire had the epithet of the "Truth-
teller " in mind in composing his novel. I will
now consider some of the reasons for believing
that this significance was not the only one in-
tended by the author.
OTHEE CONNOTATIONS IN THE NAME ZADIG
There are good reasons for believing that Vol-
taire was not wholly concerned with the episode
of Joseph and Zuleika in the creation of his
novel and the name of his hero. In the first
place, he is not likely to have chosen the name
from any one source, for he would then have
kept it in the form in which he found it. Her-
belot (Vol. 1, p. 76) makes a clear distinction
between Sadik and Seddik (or Siddik). The
former means the "just" man, he says, while
76 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIRE'S NOVELS
the latter means " temoin fidele et authentiques,"
There may have been a confusion between the
two, due to the marking of the vowel points,
but we must consider Herbelot as Voltaire's
chief source. The first objection, therefore, to
the interpretation of Kemy and Hammer is
based on linguistic grounds.
There are also internal evidences from the
novel which point to the connotation of the just
man in the name, if not its significance as such.
The author stresses that characteristic in his
hero. At the very beginning of the novel Zadig
practices charity, in accordance with the pre-
cept of Zoroaster : " When you eat, give to eat
to the dogs, though they bite you." , The Mo-
hammedans consider the giving of alms "une
action de justice aussi bien que de charite"
(Herbelot, description of the book " Sadik " or
"Sadikat" of Abou-Haian, which treats of
justice and alms-giving). Also, at the very end
of the novel it is distinctly stated that the reign
of Zadig and Astarte was the reign of " justice
and love." Of course, one may object, there
can be no reign of justice and love until the
truth has been established on its throne. Fur-
ther, what causes Zadig to murmur against
ZADIG 77
Providence, after Itobad has stolen his white
armor and made himself King of Babylon and
husband of Astarte, is that all his "justice"
has not only not brought him any reward, but
has served only to his misfortune. Here again
the reply is forthcoming: Zadig accomplishes
his ends only after he has constituted himself a
"temoin fidele et authentique." After he has
joined the ranks of the faithful adorers and
given witness to revealed religion, persecution ^
ceases, and, it would seem, also tne epithet of
"just," since the angel says that the just man
is always persecuted.
This connotation in the name is strengthened
by the probable influence of the Hebrew Sadoc
or Zadoc, which means the just man. As
founder of the sect of the Sadducees, the rul-
ing priestly class among the Jews, Sadoc would
seem to stand for a philosophy which, in part,
is reflected in the episode of the Angel and the
Hermit. This sect believed, like the Jews
under Moses, only in temporal rewards and
punishments. Voltaire was greatly interested
in the topic, both because of its connection with
the mission of Christ, and because of Warbur-
ton's book on the mission of Moses. Warburton
78 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIBE'S NOVELS
started with the premise that a nation could not
exist without the dogma of rewards and punish-
ments after death, if it were not under a special
Providence, i. e., led by God in person, and re-
warded and punished immediately. Since the
books of Moses do not contain this dogma, the
Jews must have been guided by this special
Providence. For this specious reasoning War-
burton was made a peer of the realm, with an
/enormous pension, and Voltaire sighs : II riy a
qu'heur et malheur dans le monde.
It will be noticed that there is no question of
rewards and punishments after death in the
episode of the Angel Jesrad. Everything is
te.mjgoral: either reward, or punishment, or
trial, or foresight. The hero is exactly in the
-- - u L --..-.n_-- ui L ' * mr"~^** ' '
position of Job: he has been given over to the
devil for trial of his faith, and he is rewarded
when the caprice of his master is ended.
Besides the influences which have already
been noted in the name of Voltaire's hero, there
is the probability of influence from the name of
the Persian poet Sadi or Saadi, both as regards
the name and the character. We know that Vol-
taire was acquainted with the Persian poet. It is
under his name that he masks himself in the
ZADIO 79
^
Epiire dedicatoire of the novel. Voltaire men-
tions a French translation of the Gulistan, and
he himself translated a score of verses either from
the original or from some Latin or Dutch transla-
tion. Without ascribing to him any profound
knowledge of Persian literature, we may safely
assume that he knew about as much of Saadi
as was to be found in published books in his
time. If he had had no other source than Her-
belot he would have been fairly familiar with
the character and the contents of the works of
the illustrious Persian, because Herbelot quotes
copiously from him.
There are a certain number of correspond-
ences between the Persians and the French.
Voltaire realized this in making Persepolis the
symbol for Paris in his novel Bdbouc. The pun
on Persans and Parisiem was too obvious for
him not to make it, since he makes one on Paris
(Parisis) and Isis, the Egyptian diety (M. 21,
p. 417). Montesquieu had already given promi-
nence to this similarity in his Lettres persanes.
There are also a number of correspondences
between the Persian Saadi and Voltaire. Saadi
hated injustice, violence, and fanaticism (cf.
Introduction to translation of the Boustan by
80 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
A. C. Barbier de Meymard, Paris, 1880) ; he
rails at the Envieux as does Voltaire ; he is re-
plete with moral allegories illustrating the ad-
vantage of silence, or of speaking the truth as
Saadi alone knows how, or pointed with allu-
sions to the injustice of kings and the evils of
religious fanaticism. The following are some
of his maxims which find close parallels in
Zadig or other works of Voltaire which show an
Orientalizing tendency.
As Zadig shows the King of Serendib that he
has only one honest aspirant to the post of
controleur general des finances in seventy-four,
so Saadi says to his sultan (cf. Boustan, op. cit.,
p. 18) : " Sur cent agents tu trouveras a peine
un honnete homme."
As Arimaze is deficient in the divine spark
which distinguishes man from the beast, so
Saadi says (p. 51) : " Ce n'est pas le titre
d'homme qui donne la superiorite sur la brute,
puisque celle-ci vaut mieux que 1'homme crimi-
nel. Le sage seul est superieur aux betes
fauves."
Arimaze, le malheureux, is contrasted with
Zadig, I'heureux. Voltaire says, in reference
to the persecutors whom he has known (M. 25,
ZADIG 81
p. 466) : " Jai connu des horames bien mediants,
bien atroces; je n'en ai jamais vu un seul
heureux." So Saadi says (p. 51): "Mais de
ma vie, je n'ai vu la felicite veritable etre le
partage des mediants."
Voltaire's usual practice of biding his time
until he could take his enemy off his guard and
then striking swiftly and with the greatest ve-
hemence, finds an admirable parallel in the ad-
vice of Saadi (p. 71): "L'empire du monde
appartient a 1'habilete et a la ruse; 1 baise la
main que tu ne peux mordre; prodigue les
caresses a ton ennemi, comme tu le ferais a ton
ami, en attendant Poccasion de 1'ecorcher vif ! "
How that would have appealed to Voltaire when
he had to submit to men like Fleury, Herault,
Maurepas, and Mirepoix*! It is not different
from the fate that Frederick foresaw for the old
ane de Mirepoix in case Voltaire ever succeeded
in getting into the Academy. He writes to Vol-
taire (M. 36, p. 237) :
" Malheur a Mirepoix si son panegyrique
Se prononce jamais en style academique !
Les arts qu'il offensa, pour venger leurs chagrins,
1 This conviction is repeated in a score of places in
Voltaire's Essai sur les Mceurs.
6
82 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
Renverseront sa tombe avec leurs propres mains;
Et la fade oraison que lui fera Neuville
Aura meme en sa bouche un air de vaudeville."
The fable that Saadi relates of the negro and
the peri (p. 284) is a closer parallel to the
episode of Missouf and Cletofis than the episode
in Moliere (Le manage force), which has been
considered its source. When Saadi drives off
the negro, the capricious beauty turns upon him
like a fury and he barely escapes her claws. He
draws this lesson from his adventure, which is
an admirable statement of the lesson that Zadig
draws from his adventure -with Missouf : " De
telles disgraces n'arrivent pas a qui s'occupe
tranquillement de ses affaires. De ma mesa-
venture j'ai tire une legon: desormais je fer-
merai les yeux sur les torts les plus averes
d'autrui." The giant negro and the brilliant
peri seemed like the embrace of night and dawn.
Voltaire used this comparison also in the Prin-
cesse de Babylone (M. 21, p. 431), where the
King of Ethiopia, in the upper Egypt where the
episode of Missouf takes place, -is surprised by
Amazan as he is about to ravish Formosante.
Compare the following figure with the adven-
ture of Zadig with Azora, who wished to "cut
ZADIG 83
off his nose " : " Pourquoi la main d'une femme,
quand elle louche au fruit defendu, epargnerait-
elle le visage de son epoux ? Si tu vois que ta
compagne ne se resigne pas a la retraite, la
raison et la prudence te defendent de vivre plus
longtemps avec elle" (p. 297).
The following is a good epitome of Voltaire's
diatribes against the Envieux (p. 305): "Tel
homme mene une vie retire : on lui reproche de
dedaigner la societe de ses semblables, on 1'ac-
cuse de faussete et d'hypocrisie. ' C'est un dive
qui fuit le genre humain.' S'il est d'un carac-
tere facile et sociable, on lui refuse 1'honnetete
des moeurs et la sagesse. Le riche est dechire
a belles dents ; ' s'il y a un pharaon en ce monde,
c'est lui.' Le pauvre, dont la vie se consume
dans la misere, est un miserable, un vagabond ;
le derviche aux prises avec le denuement, un
etre vil et disgracie du sort. Qu'une grande
fortune vienne a s'ecrouler, ils s'en rejouissent
et disent : ' C'est un bienf ait du Ciel ; tant de
f aste et d'orgueil ne pouvait durer ; les desastres
suivent de pres la prosperite.' Qu'un homme
pauvre et sans appui parvienne a un rang eleve,
leurs dents noires de venin dechirent 'cet in-
fame, ce parvenu objet.' As-tu produit une
84 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
ceuvre utile et lucrative, tu es un ambitieux,
un avare. Preferes-tu la meditation a la vie
active, tu n'es plus qu'un mendiant, un parasite.
Si tu paries, ils te comparent a un tambour
sonore et creux ; si tu gardes le silence, a une de
ces figures peintes sur les murs des bains.
L'homme patient est a leurs yeux un lache, a
qui la crainte fait courber la tete ; mais devant
la hardiesse et Penergie, ils fuient en traitant le
courage de folie."
These envious detractors of Saadi, whom he
lashes without pity, listen disdainfully to his
poetry. \. A hundred delicate and charming traits
leave them insensible, "mais vienne une de-
faillance, ils poussent des cris d'horreur." f The
only source of their evil will is envy, he says,
which conceals from them the perception of the
beautiful. J --
?
The episode in Zadig of the fisherman, while
primarily the outcome of Voltaire's Epitre sur
I'egalite des conditions (one of the Discours en
vers sur I'homme), is in strict conformity with
Saadi's views. The moral of one of his stories
is that everybody has his misfortunes, irre-
spective of temporal possessions.
In the Gulistan occurs the story of the drop
ZADIG 85
of water which became sad at the prospect of
being lost in the immensity of the ocean. God
took pity on it and made it a pearl which
adorned the crown of the Great Mogul. This
is, at bottom, the same apologue as the grain of
sand in the episode of Arbogad in Zadig. Vol-
taire elsewhere (M. 17, p. 570) makes use of
this apologue of the drop of water in the same
sense as the one of the grain of sand. Vol-
taire never believed in the equality of earthly
possessions, nor of physical and intellectual en-
dowment. He tells us, first in the case of Abbe
Linant, preceptor of the son of Mme. du Chate-
let, and later in the case of Jean Jacques Kous-
seau, what the proud exponent of the equality
of man must do: either he must work, or beg,
or rob, or die of hunger. If the Creator has not
made him a pearl, or a diamond, and if He does
not do so on request, let him be content to remain
a grain of sand or a drop of water; he is in
numerous company.
It should also be noticed that Zadig is rep-
resented as a poet, whose verses come easily,
impromptu, and that his misfortune comes from
an envious man who makes use of these verses to
compass his ruin. That, and the parallels which
86 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
we have noted, together with the signature of the
r
Epitre dedicatoire, would seem to be conclusive
evidence of some influence of the poet Saadi on the
name and character of Zadig. As I have already
said, Zadig is probably not chosen from any one
name, since it appears in exactly the form of
none that we have been able to discover. It is
undoubtedly made up from several, and the
more important sources of it have undoubtedly
been indicated here. As to the character Zadig,
there can be no question that it is Voltaire.
CHAPTEK IV
MOABDAR
THE purpose of this chapter is to determine
the provenience and the significance of the name
Moabdar, King of Babylon.
Iii the first place, what is Babylon ? Does the
author refer to the Babylon of the ancient Chal-
deans, to the Egyptian Babylon, to the Babylon
of the Mohammedan califs (i. e., Bagdad), or
to the Babylon of Saint Peter (i. e., Eome) ?
may refer to them all, but if he does so it
is by virtue of the significance of the name : the
City of Baal, and the City of Babel. He uses
Babylon in both senses, the one being the literal
significance of the name, and the other the re-
sult of a pun. Both meanings are closely allied,
since most of the " babel " in the world is about
the deity, under whatever name it be called.
Voltaire might just as well have referred to
Babylon as the " City where Pangloss is the
preceptor of the human race." The King of
Babylon may, therefore, be considered the King
87
88 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIRE'S NOVELS
of the Land of Pangloss, the King of the City of
the Confusion of Tongues God, in other words,
either as God, or as represented by his vicars on
earth : the Pope, on the one hand, and the vari-
ous Kings, on the other. All of them are gods
on earth, wielders of the thunder, authors of
good and evil, and chiefly the latter.
s-s It would seem obvious that Moabdar has
some connection with Voltaire's early satires on
the Regent and his daughter, the modern Lot
and his daughter, mere des Moabites. Herbe-
lot gives the significance of dar as house, palace,
residence, sojourn, place. The name Moabdar
would then signify the " King-of-the-house-of-
Moab," i. e., the descendant of Lot. The theme
is one of incest, like that of Voltaire's satires on
the Regent, like that of (Edipe, like that of the
Pucelle, like that of Candide, and other works.
There is, I think, no reason to doubt that
Voltaire was inspired to compose (Edipe by the
incestuous relations of the Regent and his
daughter, nor is there any reason to doubt, I
think, that the same theme appears in the Pu-
celle. Voltaire seems to indicate this in the
short-story of the Comte de Boursoufle (M. 32,
p. 447). One of the reasons why the hero of
MOABDAE 89
that story can not get into the French Academy
is the fact that he has discovered why Jeanne
d'Arc was called the Pucelle d' Orleans. He
seems to mean that the Pucelle d'Orleans is the
Pucelle du due d'Orleans, is the Pucelle of the
New Testament. As in his narrative of the
expulsion of the Jesuits from China, Voltaire
wished to ridicule in the Pucelle the cult of
virginity, the birth of a god who is his own
father by his mother, who is thus father and
son and husband all in one, and also, by virtue
of the reconciliation of the genealogy of Jesus,
was the brother of Mary. This god of love, who
is to rule the world, is symbolized by the winged
ass of Saint Denis, who finally gets the favors
of the Pucelle. As a phallic animal the ass is
the god of love, and was the symbol, in reality
or by a vicious invention of the enemies of the
new cult, of the early Christians of Constanti-
nople and Rome. Voltaire seems to indicate
the association with the Bible in those enigmat-
ical verses of his about Joachim Prepucier, for
which no explanation has ever been offered (M.
32, p. 386). While the hero who governs
France (i. e., the Regent) , defender of the State
and the King, is bringing back abundance into
90 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIRE'S NOVELS
the land, Joachim Prepucier also wishes to
make two young hearts content. His prepara-
tions to unite Daphnis and Cloe surprise the
god of marriage; Joachim is not the person to
unite a couple, but rather to separate them, tak-
ing them both for himself. The only way in
which Daphnis and Cloe can avoid dissatisfac-
tion with the dangerous master who has united
them is to be friends, after having been lovers.
The genealogy of Christ was reconciled, Vol-
taire says (M. 32, p. 590 f.), in the following
way : Joachim is the father of the Virgin ; Elie
r
is the father of Joseph; but Elie = Joachim,
since (1), Elie is an abbreviation of Eliachim,
r
and (2), from Eliachim you easily get Joachim.
But Joachim Prepucier, as the name indicates,
is the phallic god, who, like Hermaphrodix and
Conculix, loves both sexes, and is a symbol for
the Regent on the one hand, and the God of the
Christians (as conceived by Voltaire) on the
other.
In the Pucelle Voltaire represents the Regent
as giving the signal for debauchery :
" Vous repondez a ce signal,
Jeune Daphne, bel astre de la cour;
Vous repondez du sein du Luxembourg,
MOABDAB 91
Vous que Bacchus et le Dieu de la table
MJenent au lit, escorte par 1' Amour."
The bel astre de la cour was the Kegent's
daughter, the famous Duchess of Berry.
It was for satiric epigrammes against the
Regent and his daughter that Voltaire was ex-
iled May 4, 1716 (M. 1, p. 300), to Tulle,
which was changed, at the request of his father,
to Sully-sur-Loire. The order for this exile
bore the significant words: "ou ses parents
pourront corriger son imprudence et temperer
sa vivacite."
The following is the epigramme against the
Regent :
" Ce n'est point le fils, c'est le pere ;
C'est la fille et non point la mere;
A cela pres tout va des mieux.
Ils ont deja fait teocle;
S'il vient a perdre les deux yeux,
C'est le vrai sujet de Sophocle."
The Regent was in fact, at this time, in dan-
ger of becoming blind. The epigramme against
the Duchess of Berry is as follows:
" Enfin votre esprit est gueri
Des craintes du vulgaire;
92 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
Belle duchesse de Berry,
Achevez le mystere.
Un nouveau Lot vous sert d'epoux,
Mere des Moabitesj
Puisse bientot naitre de vous
Un peuple d' Ammonites."
If, as is probable, this episode was the inspi-
ration of (Edipe, the poet did not let it appear
in his tragedy. He was not the man to give in
dramatic form an episode of dissolute morals;
nor was he the man to treat the subject of Sopho-
cles as all his predecessors had done. He made
of it his first sermon against the Jansenists and
the God of the Jansenists, in whose religion the
future of every individual is established, like
the interacting cogs of a huge machine which
turns, forever hidden, except for the present
moment, beneath the blackness of an impene-
trable veil; the theory of predestination.
(Edipe is inceste et parricide, et pourtant vertu-
eux. Jocaste reminds him that, in the midst of
the horrors of destiny which overwhelm them,
she has made the gods blush for having forced
them into crime. It is important to notice that
Voltaire makes the God of the Jansenists evil
raised to the infinite, and the author of all evil
(cf. M. 17, p. 476, 577, 581).
MOABDAR 93
After the ban of exile had been removed from
him in 1716, Voltaire seems to have been under
surveillance. While rehearsals of (Edipe were
going on he was betrayed by the French officer
and spy of the Regent, M. Solenne de Beaure-
gard. He was arrested Jour de Pentecdte, he
says in his poem on the Bastille, but we can not,
in view of his mania of connecting everything
that happened to him with the Bible, be sure
that he did not invent this trait in order to get
in a bit of satire on the Holy Ghost. He had
satirized, the Father, in his epigrammes on the
Regent; he had satirized the Son, in his Puero
Regnante; it was now the turn of the Holy
Ghost. His valet awakens him to tell him that
the Saint Esprit is come. "Et moi de dire
alors entre mes dents: gentil puine de 1'essence
supreme, Beau Paraclet, soyez le bienvenu;
n'etes-vous pas celui qui fait qu'on aime ? " But
instead of the gentle dove of the Holy Ghost,
he finds twenty ravens who have come to take
him off to one of the King's castles; the King
has heard of his verses and bons mots, and de-
sires to give him free board and lodging. The
poet protests in vain that he is not a court poet,
and that he does not wish to become one. He
is carried off, forsaken by everyone, even by his
mistress.
In a neatly turned epigramme, probably
written at this time, Voltaire excused himself
from the-imjDutatipn of the authorship of the
satires on the Regent, and invokes the testimony
of the Duke of Brancas, through whose hands
the verses on Joachim Prepucier also passed :
"Non, monseigneur, en verite,
Ma muse n'a jamais chante
Ammonites ni Moabites.
Brancas vous repondra de moi.
Un rimeur sorti des Jesuites,
Des peuples de 1'ancienne loi
Ne connait que des Sodomites."
No better indication of Voltaire's daring
could be found; for this apology was, in itself,
a new satire on the morals of the Regent, who
calls himself un Socrate a cheveux gris.
Voltaire, in his Lettres sur (Edipe, tries to
give the impression that the Regent was con-
vinced of his innocence of the satires imputed
to him. He knows better, and he shows it by
saying that the Regent gave him a pension of
2000 livres, not so much to recompense him,
as to induce him to merit his protection. How
MOABDAR 95
could he merit that protection ? Only by drop-
ping once for all the line of personal satire in
which he had engaged. He tries, in his Lettres
sur (Edipe, to give the impression that it was
for the satire Les j'ai vu that he was persecuted.
But the report of Beauregard (M. 1, p. 300)
shows distinctly that the source of the watchful-
ness of the Regent was in the satires on his
relations to his daughter. Voltaire hates the
Regent for having exiled him in 1716 ; the Re-
gent hates Voltaire for having shown que sa
Messaline de fille etait une p. . . . In his
references to Les j'ai vu Voltaire is, I think,
simply playing on words. This satire was three
years old, and Voltaire could hardly have been
suspected of being its author, and less likely to
have been persecuted for it at that late date.
What he is really thinking of is the persecution
for ce quil avait vu, namely, the incest of the
Regent. I have already indicated my belief that
it was in reminiscence of this persecution, which
was unpleasantly recalled to his mind by the
Voltairomanie of Desfontaines, that Voltaire in-
cluded in his novel the episode of the Cheval du
roi des rois et la chienne sacree de la reine.
I think that this episode with the Regent has
96 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIBE'S NOVELS
much to do with Voltaire's name, and, as it is
intimately connected with his symbolism, I will
include here my theory of it.
VOLTAIRE'S
The last letter in which he signs himself
Arouet is dated from Chatenay, April 15, and
this letter is probably the first that the poet
wrote after his release from the Bastille and on
beginning his short exile. The next letter in
the correspondence, if properly classified (since
it is undated), is the first in which the new
name Voltaire occurs. It is to the Regent, and
the name Voltaire occurs both in the body of the
letter and at the end, and without the least
word of explanation for the change. Since Vol-
taire explained to Jean Baptiste Rousseau his
reasons for adopting a new name, is it probable
that he would have been silent on this topic to
the Regent, especially since all his misfortunes,
of which he complains to Rousseau, came from
the Regent? We' may safely assume that he
would not, and that he must have given to the
Regent, before being released from the Bastille,
some assurance of his future conduct. He ad-
mits, in this letter, that the Regent has corrected
MOABDAB 97
him by a year in the Bastille ; that is, that the
purpose of the first exile, pour corriger son im-
prudence et temperer so, vivacite, has been ac-
complished by his imprisonment. I take it that
this name, Voltaire, is to be for him an ever
present reminder of this fact, especially since
he was so volontaire by nature. He will be
from now on, not M. de Volontaire, but M. de
Voltaire, a man vowed to circumspection. This
interpretation of the name is not at all far-
fetched, in view of Voltaire's habit of punning
on names. He notes similar names in his
works. Tasso called himself Pentito, to mark
his repentance for the years which he had
wasted in the study of law. Scarron called his
income from his books the rents from his terre
de Quinet, that being the name of his publisher.
D'Argental, as conseiller d'honneur au parle-
ment, bears the name of his estate. Chabanon,
because he composed an excellent exposition of
a tragedy, which Voltaire calls a vestibule, is
dubbed M. du Vestibule. Maupertuis is called
M. le marquis du cercle polaire. In short,
scores of such examples could be given.
Voltaire tells Rousseau that he had two rea-
sons for adopting another name: he had been
98 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
so unhappy under the name of Arouet that he
wished to- see if his fate would be more pro-
pitious under a new name, and he wished to
distinguish himself from the poet Hoi. It seems
that the name Eoi was pronounced at that time
quite the same as the last syllable of Arouet (cf.
Kyrop). Thus Arouet is a king, but a king
without a land. What does he do? He takes
one, he steals one, not literally, like the other
kings, but figuratively, like Scarron's terre de
Quinei, and d'Argental's terre d'honneur, etc.
His land is in the Republic of Letters. He will
not give up the career of a man of letters, as he
had been urged ; on the contrary, he will become
king of it, by symbolism ! He was noble, on his
mother's side; he was noble by sentiments and
instincts ; he was noble by talents. He lived in
the plus grand monde, as one author expresses
it, and was enrage d'etre bourgeois. By the as-
sumption of a place name he raised himself
into the ranks of conventional nobility. He was
better than his noble associates, for the entire
nobility of Europe, from the greatest kings
down, owed their titles, in extremo, to theft.
This thought is repeated in a score of places
in Voltaire's works ; even the kingdom of heaven \
MOABDAB 99
was not different from the kingdoms of the
earth: violenti rapiunt illud. No better expo-
sition of this can be found than in the episode
of Arbogad.
Voltaire made use of a variation on his name
in the pseudonym under which he traveled in
Holland : M . de Revol. He undoubtedly uses a
combination of the name of Mme. de Rupel-
monde, widow of M. de Recourt, and his name
of Voltaire. He had been in Holland with her
in 1722 ; he has to fly back there at the time of
the persecution for the Mondain: he is M. de
Revol, with a play on voler, to fly, and court,
from courir, to run.
The name Voltaire would be, then, a clever
equivoque, like all the symbolic names of which
he makes use. It marks the author's desire to
be a noble, both in the conventional sense and
in the Republic of Letters ; it marks his symbol-
ism ; it marks his plan of eluding persecution.
In connection with his satires on the Regent
Voltaire took a characteristically bold attitude:
he determined to dedicate his tragedy to the
Regent, and actually did dedicate it to the wife
of the Regent. This procedure is a genuine
Voltaire-trait, exactly paralleled by his dedi-
100 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIRE'S NOVELS
cation of Mahomet to the Pope. Voltaire chose,
in both cases, the protector whom he had really
outraged, and the only one capable of protecting
him.
The opening of the novel falls, therefore, in
the period of Voltaire's demeles with the Re-
gent, whose debauchery was so famous. It is
the same association of ideas with Lot, and
Sodom and Gomorra, that is at the bottom of
the symbolism of Babouc. The angel Ituriel
sends Babouc to Persepolis to see if there are
enough just men in it to warrant its preserva-
tion. The idea is taken from the visit of the
angels to the two cities of Palestine. Dealing,
as Voltaire's novels do, with his enemies in the
Republic of Letters, in religion, and in political
despotism, no better or rather no more fitting
theme could have been chosen by him, in view
of the reputation of the Church that he assails/
and that of such men as the Regent, Frederick,
Desfontaines, Rousseau.
It is probable, then, that Moabdar is the suc-
cessor of Lot, i. e., Louis XV, the successor of
the Regent.
The chief point to be noticed in reference to
Moabdar is that his madness and death lead to
MOABDAE 101
a war of succession. This fact, if we keep in
mind the timeliness of all Voltaire's work,
points to the war of the Austrian succession, of
which Voltaire was historiographer. Charles
VI was the type of monarch that Voltaire holds
up to the condemnation of the world. In his
Ode sur la mort de I'Empereur Charles VI (M.
8, p. 447), Voltaire compares this roi des rois
to a cedar whose head defied so long the tem-
pests and whose branches overshadowed so
many states ; his very name is now effaced, de-
voured by the grave in which he is buried. If
he had conducted his armies in person and by
his valor strengthened the Empire, whose glory
is expiring beneath the proud Ottoman; if he
had been terrible to the Turks, instead of being
terrible to his generals, whose death he sought
for concluding peace ; or if, better still, he had
caused the arts to flourish, like the second of the
Csesars, then Voltaire, instead of holding him
up as a warning to kings, would, as the herald
of truth, have showered upon him the praises of
immortal verse, whose light pierces the depths
of the night of time.
How could Voltaire associate Charles VI
under the same symbol with Louis XV? He
102 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
makes many historical rapprochements, such as
that of Frederick with Solomon, with the Em-
peror Frederick III (cf. Annales de I' Empire,
Beauchot 23, p. 392), and with the Emperor
Frederick II. That is but natural. In dis-
cussing the sacrament of marriage and the inter-
ference of the popes with the bed of kings, he
naturally ranges all historical instances of this
under one heading. It was but natural, in the
war of 1Y41, that Voltaire should think of the
wars of succession in France, two of which he
had already treated poetically, one in the Hen-
riade, the other in the Pucelle. In the canto
of the Pucelle entitled the Capilotade, Voltaire
has satirized many of his enemies under names
which appear (in editions published in the life-
time of the author) to be those of poets under
the reign of Charles VI. His association of
ideas seems plain: Charles VI, le Menraime, is,
by virtue of his epithet, Louis XV, le bien-aime.
But the Emperor was also Charles VI, there-
fore he is also Moabdar. When Louis XV fell
ill at Metz and dismissed his mistress through
the machinations of "un sot" (M. 9, p. 220),
some other fool gave him the title of bienrdime.
As soon as he became the bien-avme he became,
MOABDAB 103
for Voltaire's symbolism, Charles VI, the mad
King of France, and Charles VI, the Emperor,
whose death had become the signal for the
war of the Austrian Succession.
This symbolism is quite obvious from the
eposide of Missouf and Cletofis. As Zadig
nears the first village of Egypt he sees a woman
in tears, of touching beauty, somewhat like
Astarte, being maltreated by a jealous brute.
She calls upon Zadig to save her. Zadig remon-
strates with the jealous lover, who, accusing
him of being one of her favorites, turns upon
him with blind and passionate vehemence. Za-
dig is forced to kill him. ^hereupon the ca-
pricious lady breaks out in execrations upon
him for killing her lover. Zadig is dumb-
founded at her conduct. Shortly afterward the
emissaries of Moabdar appear and take Missouf
for Astarte, in pursuit of whom they had been
despatched in all directions. Voltaire is here
referring to the fool Fitz-James who caused the
dismissal of Mme. de Chateauroux, and who
was himself the instrument of Maurepas. The
name of the brute, Cletofis, seems to be a hybrid
formed from the following elements: -fis =
fils = fitz (of Fitz- James ); CUto (Para)-
104 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIKE'S NOVELS
clet, celui qui fait quon dime, as Voltaire inter-
prets it in his poem on the Bastille, and is a
translated pun on the last component part of
the name Fitz-James. Cletofis is, therefore,
the spirit of the Lord, the spirit of the Clergy,
a spirit which Voltaire had attacked often
enough, and in consequence of which he was
reduced to a position of servitude in his own
country.
Missouf is carried to Babylon and has the
good fortune to please the King, who makes her
his wife. Then she shows the significance of
her name : she is la belle capricieuse, who gives
free rein to all her extravagant fancies. These
consist principally in awarding positions of
honor to those who are particularly unfit for
them. She asked the High Priest, who was old
and gouty, to dance before her, and, on his re-
fusal, persecuted him violently. She ordered the
Head Groom to make her a tart. It was in vain
for him to protest that he was not a pastry-
cook; he had to make the tart, and was dis-
charged because it was burned. She gave his
charge to the court fool, and the place of Chan-
cellor to a page.
**> Voltaire had been ambitious to play a role at
MOABDAE 105
court. He had found in England men of letters
honored with the highest offices in the gift of
the crown] The Comte de Maurepas had aided
him to win his cause against the Abbe Desfon-
taines, and the poet counted on the protection
of the Minister to get into the French Academy.
At the time of the persecutions of Mirepoix
Voltaire was designated by the King to visit
the court of Frederick on a semi-diplomatic
mission. Amelot was Minister of Foreign Af-
fairs at this time, and Voltaire acted under his
immediate instructions, although the correspond-
ence passed through the hands of Mme. du
Chatelet. It seems that Mme. de Chateauroux
was jealous that the negotiations had not passed
through her hands, and she caused Amelot to be
dismissed. Voltaire had hoped to make his
real services to France serve his ambition to get
into the French Academy, but the disgrace of
Amelot, and the discontent of the King's mis-
tress, together with the enmity of Maurepas,
wrecked his hopes. To Maurepas Voltaire had
r *
addressed an Epitre, now known as the Epitre a
V
un ministre d'Etat sur I' Encouragement des
arts, in the hope of enlisting his support, but
Maurepas hated even more than Fleury tout ce
106 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
qui s'elevait au-dessus des hommes ordinaires,
says Condorcet, and Voltaire's hints seem to
have produced a bad effect on him. On the
death of Floury Maurepas joined Mirepoix, ac-
cording to Voltaire (Memoires pour servir a
la vie de Voltaire), to prevent the poet's elec-
tion to the place made vacant by the Cardinal's
death. He is reported to have said to the poet :
Je vous ecraserai. ITow, in the Epitre of Vol-
taire, the patronage of the court is compared to
the casting of lots in the household of the Duke
of Mazarin for the posts of honor, just about as
Missouf distributes them.
" On compte que Pepoux de la celebre Hortense
Signala plaisamment sa sainte extravagance:
Craignant de f aire un choix par sa f aible raison,
II tirait aux trois des les rangs de sa maison.
Le sort, d'un postilion, faisait un secretaire;
Son cocher etonne devint homme d'affaire;
Un docteur hibernois, son tres-digne aumonier,
Rendit grace au destin qui le fit cuisinier."
It was undoubtedly in reminiscence of this
vain attempt to arouse in Maurepas a sense of
duty towards men of letters and especially
towards himself, that Voltaire created the char-
acter of Missouf. Her name is probably either
MOABDAR
I
an anagramme for, Miss Fouyor it is from the
Greek, meaning " Sne I wno-hates-philosophy."
Philosophy is the love of truth, therefore Mis-
souf hates the Speaker-of-the-truth, i. e., Zadig
and Voltaire. Her resemblance to Astarte is
explained in an episode of the Pucelle (M. 9,
p. 270), where Voltaire describes the two kinds
of imagination. Missouf is not the goddess,
Venus Urania, who presides over immortal
works,
" Mais celle-lk qui abjure le bon sens,
Cette etourdie, eflfaree, insipide,
Que tant d'auteurs approehent de si pres,
Qui les inspire," etc.
Her finest favors are showered on novels, new
comic operas, on Scuderi, Lemoine, Desmarets,
etc. All the characters of the Pucelle are in
her domain, where a scene similar to that of
Missouf takes place :
" Comme ils couraient dans ce vaste pourpris,
L'un se saignant, Pautre tout en lannes,
Ils sont frappes des plus lugubres cris.
Un jeune objet, touchant, rempli de charmes,
Avec frayeur embrassait les genoux
D'un chevalier qui, couvert de ses armes,
L'allait bientot immoler sous ses coups."
108 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
Here everybody is crazy; they are just like the
Sorbonne professors: Us sont tons fous quand
Us sont sur les banes. In short, the episode here,
as in Zadig, deals with the capricious folly of
literature, of religion, of politics. This episode
~"***""*'^i% J,p4**f*n**i , B SfaaBW*i*' -Jk*.-.- -- *** -L
has also a pendant in the Diable antique, nomme
I'Inconstance (== caprice) of the Guerre civile
de Geneve (M. 9, p. 527).
It is possible that the name Missouf may have
been influenced by the extravagance of the im-
agination of the Abbe de Voisenon in his novel
Le Sultan Misapouf et la princesse Grisemine,
and Cletofis by the Don Cleofas of Le Sage's
Diable boiteux.
One can easily see how Voltaire rounds out
his symbolism. Not only is Louis XV, as soon
as he becomes le bien-aime, the mad King of
France, Charles VI, but, as a mad king, he
must necessarily be the lover of Miss Fou, of
Folly, of Extravagance, of Wild Imaginings.^--
It should be noticed that it is really Missouf
who causes the war in the novel, and that Vol-
taire ascribed the part of France in this war to
Mme. de Chateauroux, as he ascribed the peace
of 1748, and the beginning of European felic-
ity, to Mme. de Pompadour. In each case it is
MOABDAK 109
love, of different natures, but also similar, which
produces these two effects.
In the canto of the Pucelle, the Capilotade,
Voltaire compares himself to Charles VII, be-
cause the enemies of both were the faction of
the parlementaires, the Jansenists, the convul-
sionnaires of both epochs. That Voltaire always
looked upon these people as his particular ene-
mies is evident from his numerous publications
against them. This seems to have been so from
the earliest times that we have any knowledge
of him. His designation for his elder brother,
whom he certainly did not love, is son. jansen-
iste de frere. He frequently calls them crazy,
mad, capable of the crimes of the wretched
Seide. He writes to Fleury (M. 36, p. 148;
August 22, 1742) : " C'est une fatalite pour moi
que les seuls hommes qui aient voulu troubler
votre heureux ministere soient les seuls qui
m' aient persecute, j usque-la que la cabale des
convulsionnaires, c'est-a-dire ce qu'il y a de
plus abject dans le rebut du genre humain, a
obtenu la suppression injurieuse d'un ouvrage
honore de votre approbation, et represente de-
vant les premiers magistrats de Paris." Vol-
taire indicates the application of his satire in
110 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIRE'S NOVELS
the Pucelle to the Jansenists by making Saint
Austin (or Augustin) the representative of the
Parlement, of the friends of the mad King
Charles, of the English usurpers, in the council
of Heaven. He sings of the God of vengeance,
of the exterminating angel, of twenty thousand
Jews cut to pieces pour un veau, of Joaz killed
by Josabad, son of Atrobad, et Atlialie, si me-
chamment mise a mort par Joad. Saint Denis,
on the other hand, celebrates the God of clem-
ency, of love, and wins the prize. The treat-
ment that Saint Augustin receives is like the
treatment to which Itobad is subjected in
Zadig.
" Austin rougit, il f nit en tapinois :
Chacun en rit, le paradis le hue.
Tel fut hue dans les murs de Paris
Un pedant sec, a face de Thersite,
Vil delateur, insolent hypocrite,
Qui fut paye de haine et de mepris
Quand il osa, dans ses phrases vulgaires,
Fletrir les arts et condamner nos freres."
There are some other correspondences between
the reign of Charles VI and that of Louis XV
to which attention should be called. During
the early reign of Charles VI we meet with the
MOABDAE 111
Duke of Orleans whose character is quite sim-
ilar to that of the Regent. Both are reproached
for their debauchery, both are accused of plot-'
ting against the reigning house. The question
of succession was often raised in both periods.
The mad King of Spain, Philip V, plotted to
oust the Regent from the throne in the event of
the death of Louis XV. During the madness
of Charles VI the nation was plunged into the
greatest misery. Two dauphins were dead, the
third was only thirteen years old. Three par-
ties formed in Paris, about like the three parties
in Zadig, to dispute the throne. Charles VI
formed suspicions of the fidelity of his wife,
like those of Moabdar. In one of his lucid in-
tervals he saw the Seigneur Boisbourdon com-
ing out of the apartments of his wife. The
King had him seized, put to torture, sewed up in
a sack, in the manner of the typical Oriental
despot, and thrown into the Seine. He did not
attempt to poison the Queen, as Moabdar did;
but he had her imprisoned, and it was her im-
prisonment, like that of Astarte, which led to
the most astonishing revolution since the days
of Charlemagne (Essai sur les mceurs, Beuchot
16, p. 387 ff.). It placed the crown of France
112 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
on the head of the English King. Just as
Moabdar's madness and the disorders attending
it caused the people to believe him smitten of
God, so the King of England proclaimed that
the afflictions of the French marked the designs
of Providence to place the crown on his head
(Beuchot 16, p. 402). And if it is not the
Queen, Isabelle of Bavaria, who marries the
King of England, as Astarte marries Zadig, it
is her daughter who brings to him France as a
dowry; and who says daughter, in the House
of Moab, says wife. Thus it is all one for Vol-
taire's symbolism whether Marie Therese, of
Bavaria, is the daughter or the wife of the
Emperor Charles VI, just as it is all one in the
case of the King Charles VI.
The question at issue in the period of Charles
VI, King of France, as in the case of Charles
VI, Emperor, is the salic law on the one hand,
and the Pragmatic Sanction on the other: the
right of inheritance through the female line.
The fact that the Dauphine, for whom Voltaire
composed the Princesse de Navarre and Semi-
ramis, was named Marie-Therese, like the
daughter of Charles VI, must have aided Vol-
MOABDAB 113
taire's imagination in making himself, under
the name of Zadig, her humble adorer.
Aside from the similarity of motives which
we find in these two epochs, there is another and
not unimportant reason for believing that Vol-
taire associated these characters under one
m
symbol. The Epitre dedicatoire of Zadig is
meant for the Marquise de Pompadour, who
always wished to be considered the Agnes Sorel
of her century. She even dressed up as a
musketeer and followed the King to Flanders,
about as Agnes is represented in the Pucelle,
donning Jeanne's armor over Chandos' panta-
loons. Now, this Epitre bears the date of 837
of the Hegira. While Voltaire was not always
exact in computing the corresponding dates of
the Mohammedan and the Christian eras, he
was never far wrong. He is not likely to have
chosen this date without a good and sufficient
reason. It would fall certainly in the period
of the struggle of Charles VII for the throne
of his ancestors, and would be, if Voltaire were
exact in his computation, approximately the
date of the triumphal entry of the King into
Paris (1437).
CHAPTEE V
ASTABTE
THE purpose of the present chapter is to de-
termine the significance of Astarte for Voltaire's
symbolism.
By virtue of the equations already made in
the case of Moabdar, it is 'obvious that Astarte
is the wife of Louis XV, the wife of Charles
VI, King of France, and, as a result of the in-
cest theme, the daughter of Charles VI, Em-
peror. But what Astarte is for Moabdar does
not explain what she is for Voltaire and for
Zadig.
Zadig had loved before, as had Voltaire, and
neither has any patience with the tender pas-
sion.
Zadig's first experience is with the beautiful
Semire, who is carried off by Orcan, or rather,
who deserts Zadig when he is sorely wounded
by Orcan, and herself yields to the ravisher.
There is a good deal of personal satire in the
episode of Semire and Orcan. In the first place,
114
ASTARTE 115
Voltaire satirizes the ladies of the court, les
begueules titrees de la cour, as he calls them in
his letter to Mme. de Bernieres (M. 33, p. 125),
against whom Paris is inundated with chansons
(M. 33, p. 89). That is the primary signifi-
cance of the episode; Zadig suffers such a ter-
rible caprice of a girl brought up at court.
In the second place, Voltaire satirizes the
noblemen. Orcan has neither the graces nor
the wit of Zadig; he is vain, jealous and envious,
persuaded that everything is permitted to him
because he is the nephew of a minister.
In the third place, he satirizes the doctors,
Moliere's old hobby. Hermes could have cured
Zadig if his wound had been in the right eye.
The personal reference here is to Borelli, who
claimed (M. 17, p. 224) that the left eye was
much stronger than the right, although there
were not wanting skillful physicians who took
the part of the right eye against him. When
the abscess breaks and heals of itself, Hermes
writes a book to prove that Zadig ought not to
have recovered. The elements of this satire are
to be found in Voltaire's correspondence. At
the time when he was trying to recover from his
love for the Marechale de Villars by wrapping
116 SYMBOLISM OP VOLTAIRE'S NOVELS
himself in a mantel of philosophy, he wrote to
the Marquise de Mimeure for a plaster for le
bouton qui lui est venu sur I' ceil. That is the
starting point for the episode of Semire. Con-
dorcet says that Voltaire always spoke of his
love for the heautiful Marechale with regret,
almost with remorse, because it took him from
his work. It is her husband who writes to Vol-
taire to be on his guard against Dr. Vinache
(M. 33, p. 65), "quoique ses discours sedui-
sants, 1'art de reunir Pinfluence des sept planetes
avec les mineraux et les sept parties nobles du
corps, et le besoin de trois ou quatre Javottes,
donne de 1'admiration." It is also at the house
of her sister, in the Chateau de Maisons, that
Voltaire is stricken with small-pox. It was in
reference to this malady of his that a long letter
to Mme. du Chatelet's father was printed in the
Mercure of December, 1T23 (M. 33, p. 100),
in which Voltaire takes the doctors to task.
They fail to realize that a man who recovers by
taking a certain remedy may have recovered in
spite of the remedy, in cases where the vital
organs are not affected, since nature is the great
restorer. They then treat all cases with the same
remedy, failing to realize that every malady
ASTABTE 117
must be as different in different individuals as
les traits de nos visages.
Zadig is beaten by the satellites of Orcan,
and then forsaken by Semire on account of the
danger he is in of becoming blind in one eye.
So Voltaire, when he thought of the marks left
on his face by his terrible malady, feared the
desertion of his fair lady (M. 10, p. 256; M.
32, p. 399) :
" Mais, Ciel ! quel souvenir vient iei me surprendre !
Cette aimable beaute qui m'a donne sa foi,
Qui m'a jure toujours une amitie" si tendre,
Daignera-t-elle encor jeter les yeux sur moit
****
M'aurait-elle oublie? serait-elle volage?
Que dis-je? malheureux! ou vais-je m'engagerf
Quand on porte sur le visage
D'un mal si redoute le fatal temoignage,
Est-ce a 1'amour qu'il faut songerf "
The poet calls upon the pitiless gods of the
underworld not to cut short his days; they are
devoted to his love, if she is constant. This
trait suggests the interpretation of the name
Orcan: he is the god of the under-world, who
assailed Voltaire's life, and who took his love,
Adrienne Lecouvreur. The personal applica-
118 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
tion then becomes obvious. Voltaire had been
assaulted by the Chevalier de Eohan-Chabot
after having said, it is reported, that "he did
not bear as great a name as the Chevalier, but
he honored the one he bore." Voltaire may
have referred to the meaning of the name of the
Chevalier. Chabot means the Ore, i. e., Cha-
bot = Orcan. Whether the marks on Voltaire's
face are made by the canes of the "six coupe-
jarrets du brave Chevalier de Eohan-Chabot,"
or by the malady of the god of the under-world
is all one for Voltaire's symbolism; it is the
devil in either case, Voltaire's first symbol of
the author of evil in his novel. Orcan is a court
devil, an aristocratic devil, protected by the
noble house of Kohan, the head of which, Car-
dinal Rohan, enjoyed the greatest distinction.
Just what connection Adrienne Lecouvreur
had with the episode is not known, but that
she was involved in it is evident from the letter
of the President Bouhier (M. 1, p. 304). The
name Semire seems to have been chosen from
Semiramis, the tragedy which Voltaire com-
posed for the Dauphine. Voltaire often refers
to actresses by the title roles of the plays in
which they appear. At the time he was com-
ASTAETE 119
posing Semiramis the Dauphine died, although
Voltaire (as in the episode of Semire), had ex-
pected to die himself (M. 36, p. 466). Voltaire
seems to have made the equivalence of Orcan,
Chabot, Dauphin, which is justifiable liguistic-
ally. Thus Semire became the bride of Orcan
in whichever way you take it.
There is no doubt that Voltaire loved Adri-
enne Lecouvreur, if only on account of her tal-
ent. He had to yield to more illustrious rivals,
as is evident from a passage in the short story
of the Comte de Boursoufle (M. 32, p. 447),
and from the following verses (M. 32, p. 404) :
" Recevez dans vos bras mes illustres rivaux'
C'est ttn mal necessaire et je vous le pardonne"
The desperate atrocity to which Voltaire had
been subjected by Rohan-Chabot is, if anything,
even greater than the malady of the small-pox
from which Voltaire suffered. He seems to in-
dicate this in the wording of the episode : " ...
sa douleur le mit au bord du tombeau; il fut
longtemps malade, mais enfin la raison Pemporta
sur son affliction ; et 1'atrocite de ce qu'il eprou-
vait servit meme a le consoler." There is cer-
tainly no atrocity in being abandoned by one's
120 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
mistress, as was Zadig; but there is no greater
atrocity than to be assassinated by a cowardly
nobleman and abandoned by one's friends, as
was Voltaire in this experience. Immediately
after it Voltaire wrote to Mme. de Bernieres
(M. 33, p. 156) that he had been a I'extremite,
and was only awaiting his recovery to abandon
forever the court. Thus Semire is a symbol for
the caprice of the court, un si cruel caprice d'une
fille elevee a la cour, as Zadig expresses it.
->. After this experience Zadig has enough of the
court. " Puisque j'ai essuye un si cruel caprice
d'une fille elevee a la cour," he said to himself,
" il faut que j'epouse une citoyenne." He picks
out Azora, " la plus sage et la mieux nee de la
ville.") She proves, after a few weeks of do-
mestic felicity, that she is quite willing to play
the role of a second Matron of Ephesus. Cador,
Zadig's dear friend, readily persuades her to
cut off Zadig's nose in order to cure her new
lover of a disorder of the spleen.
Voltaire refers here, I think, to his experi-
ence with Mile. Livry, a young actress who be-
came his mistress, but soon transferred her pas-
sion to his dear friend Genonville. Her life is
like the adventures of a novel. She had to
ASTABTE 121
leave the Theatre-Frangais for some reason, ac-
companied a troupe of actors to England, and
became stranded there. The Marquis de Gou-
vernet heard about her grace and modesty,
offered her his hand in marriage, and was re-
fused because her union with him would be a
mesalliance. Voltaire speaks of the fortune
which she won from lottery tickets (M. 33, p.
135; Nov., 1724). That was a device of the
Marquis to equalize their fortunes. He gave
her the tickets and had a false drawing-list
printed in which her tickets won a great sum.
Voltaire often refers to her passion for his
friend, as in the Pucelle, and in the following
verses (M. 10, p. 245 f.) :
" Toi, dont la delicatesse,
Par un sentiment fort humain,
Aima mieux ravir ma maitresse
Que de la tenir de ma main."
The conduct of his friend Genonville was re-
peated by two other friends of Voltaire: Thie-
riot, in the case of Mme. de Bernieres, and
d'Argental, in the case of Mile. Lecouvreur.
D'Argental even went so far as to wish to make
the famous actress his wife. The name Cador
122 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
is probably formed from the name d'Argental,
on the analogy of Castor; Voltaire calls the
brothers d'Argental and Pont-de-Veyle Castor
and Pollux. Cador is a "golden" friend, as
were also the two brothers d'Argenson, whose
name may come under the symbolism. The
name Azora is probably taken from the cant of
the stage: appeler azor, to hiss. Besides being
symbolic of Voltaire's relations to Mile. Livry,
the episode embodies Voltaire's ideas of love in
the drama. He had no use for the tender pas-
sion, as is well known.
The next stage in Voltaire's relations to the
fair sex is represented by his Temple de I'Amitie,
from which all have been driven except him and
his amie. Friendship is the only passion of the
sage, friendship and the love of letters. He
writes to Cideville (M. 33, p. 403): "Les
belles-lettres sont pour moi ce que les belles
sont pour vous, elles sont ma consolation et le
soulagement de mes douleurs." It is not love
but friendship that retains him at the side of
Mme. du Chatelet. Frederick has made fun of
him for his attachment to her; he refused to
believe that his relations were purely Platonic.
Voltaire replies (M. 35, p. 564) :
ASTABTE 123
" Un ridicule amour n'embrase point mon ame,
Cythere n'est point mon sej'our;
Je n'ai point quitte votre adorable cour
Pour soupirer en sot aux genoux d'une femme."
Voltaire paid a noble tribute to his muse in
the verses which he added to his fifth Discours
en vers sur I'homme (Sur la nature du plaisir) :
" Quand sur les bords du Mein deux ecumeurs bar-
bares,
Des lois des nations violateurs avares,
Deux fripons a brevets, brigands accredites,
fipuisaient contre moi leurs laches cruaute"s,
Le travail occupait ma fermete tranquille;
Des arts qu'ils ignoraient leur antre fut Fasile.
Ainsi le dieu des bois enflait ses chalumeaux,
Quand le voleur Cacus enlevait ses troupeaux:
II n'interrompit point sa douce melodic.
Heureux qui jusqu'au temps du terme de sa vie,
Des beaux-arts amoureux, peut cultiver leurs fruits.
II brave ^injustice, il calme ses ennuis;
II pardonne aux humains, il rit de leur delire,
Et de sa main mourante il touche encor sa lyre."
With this idea of his muse as the basis of
his symbolism Voltaire can bring in allusions
from a half dozen different personages. The
Queen of Babylon is now Marie Leczinska, now
Marie Therese, now Isabelle of Bavaria, now
the Pompadour, who was Queen of Love in
124 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
very truth, now Mme. du Chatelet, who was
Voltaire's divinity and the symbol of his muse,
etc. It seems to be part of Voltaire's sly inten-
tion to make a sort of Anne of Austria out of
the devout Marie Leczinska. A brief resume of
his life as a courtier and his relations to the
Pompadour and to his divine Emilie will be
necessary to show the realistic basis of the vari-
ous episodes of the novel.
Voltaire was something of a courtier before
his atrocious experience with the Chevalier de
Rohan-Chabot. He writes from Fontainebleau
(Sept. 17, 1725 ; M. 33, p. 148) to Mme. de
Bernieres that he has prepared a little Divertisse-
ment for the marriage of Marie Leczinska, but
he intends to wait until all the fracas is over in
order to pay his court to her. He is going to
dedicate CEdipe to her also (which would enable
him to bring her under the incest theme of the
house of Moab). A little later he writes (M.
33, p. 151) to Thieriot: " J'ai ete ici tres-bien
regu de la reine. Elle a pleure a Marianne, elle
a ri a I'Indiscret; elle me parle souvent; elle
m'appelle mon pauvre Voltaire." A fool would
be content with that, he adds, but that is only
a stepping stone for something more substantial.
ASTABTE 125
In the dedicatory verses which he sent to the
Queen with Marianne (M. 10, p. 259) he com-
pares her to Pallas Athene, protectrice of the
arts (i. e., she is his muse). She has the bear-
ing and the graces of the goddess. Voltaire
apologizes for the seeming impropriety of send-
ing to her a tragedy, the theme of which deals
with the brutal jealousy of Herod, since she is
the delight of the King's heart. Some charac-
teristics of Herod and Marianne may well have
found their way into the King and Queen of
Babylon. In Voltaire's realistic comedy of the
Envieux Cleon and Hortense are very similar
to Herod and Marianne.
It is well known that Voltaire, who had
lived in the " plus grand monde " up to the time
of his forced voyage to England, lived thereafter
with only a few chosen friends. His life with
Mme. du Chatelet at Cirey was one of profound
seclusion, troubled only by the machinations of
various envious persons, of whom Rousseau and
Desfontaines were the chiefs. Cirey was for
him the terrestrial paradise, I'asile des beaux-
arts, as he expressed it in the verses which he
had engraved over the portal. Then came the
period of his residence at Brussels, his trip to
126 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
Berlin in the service of the French ministry of
foreign affairs, his assistance to Frederick in the
publication of the Anti-Machiavel. He is now
the satellite of Venus (i. e., of Mme. du Chate-
let). Frederick writes him (M. 36, p. 181) :
"Vous circulez a 1'entour de cette planete et
suivez le cours que cet astre decrit de Paris a
Bruxelles, et de Bruxelles a Cirey."
On the death of Fleury Voltaire entertained
well-founded hopes of being elected to his place
in the French Academy (M. 36, p. 187) : " Le roi
m'a donne son agrement pour etre de 1' Academic
en cas qu'on veuille de moi. Je veux qu'on f asse
succeder un pauvre diable au premier ministre."
That Voltaire counted greatly on getting elected
to the vacancy left by Fleury is evident from his
letter to d'Argental (M. 36, p. 190), in which
he says that his life depends upon it. He had
enough " science," but not enough " religion,"
as he expresses it in the short story of the Comte
de Boursoufle; Maurepas and Mirepoix, Lan-
guet, Archbishop of Sens, and the Cardinal de
Rohan, Archbishop of Strasburg, the griffon,
and the cheval du roi des rois et la chienne de la
reine prevented his election. Persecuted on all
sides (M. 36, p. 195), he wishes at least to have
A8TABTE 127
the public in his favor, i. e., by his numerous
dramas which he composed in this period. Such
triumphs as those of Alzire, Zaire, and espe-
cially Merope, are symbolized in the Combats
in Zadig; it is a joust with all claimants to the
laurel crown. His enemies steal from him the
reward which was his due, as does Itobad in the
novel. Voltaire writes to d'Argental (M. 36,
p. 196): "Deux hommes puissants se sont
reunis pour m'arracher un agrement frivole, la
seule recompense que je demandais apres trente
annees de travail." The ignorant, opulent and
rascally " cheval " de Mirepoix can not be paci-
fied even by Voltaire's confession of orthodoxy ;
he is as cruel as he is ambitious and avaricious
(M. 36, p. 211) : "Le premier benifice qu'il a
eu apres la mort du cardinal vaut pres de quatre-
vingt mille livres de rente ; le premier apparte-
ment qu'il a eu, a Paris, est celui de la reine, et
tout le monde s'attend a voir, au premier jour,
sa tete, que votre Majeste appelle si bien une
tete d'ane, ornee d'une calotte rouge apportee de
Rome." Voltaire consoles himself, however;
the Pope may give him a cardinal's hat, but he
can not give him a head.
In order to become an elu in the French Acad-
128 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
emy and in le saint paradis, equivalent terms
for Voltaire, he dedicates his tragedy of Ma-
homet to the Pope, after having expressed his
determination to dedicate it to Frederick; it
was all the same thing, after all, as will be seen
in the chapter on Arbogad. At the same time,
after the forced resignation of Amelot (in
1744), through whom Voltaire had carried on
his negotiations with Frederick, and who was
succeeded by Voltaire's friend and protector,
the Marquis d'Argenson, the poet intrigued at
the French court as well as at the court of Rome.
He considered himself, in fact, the favorite at
three courts : at France, at Rome, and at Berlin.
The King is content with him, Mirepoix can
not harm him now about the griffon, and he is
on such excellent terms with His Holiness, that
he can say (M. 36, p. 357) : " C'est a present
aux devots a me demander ma protection pour
ce monde-ci et pour 1'autre." In other words,
he is le ministre, as in Zadig. He is over-
whelmed with the l)ontees du roi (M. 36, p.
358; May 3, 1745). He pays assiduous court
to the new Queen of Love, Mme. d'Etiolles, nee
Poisson, whom the King had taken from her
husband about as the Seigneur Orcan took the
ASTARTE 129
wife of the fisherman in the novel. After the
battle of Fontenoy Voltaire actually compares
himself to a minister of State (M. 36, p. 366) :
"La tete me tourne; je ne sais comment faire
avec les dames, qui veulent que je lone leurs
cousins et leurs greluchons. On me traite
comme un ministre; je fais des mecontents."
There appeared at this time a number of at-
tacks on Voltaire in prose and verse (M. 36, p.
372). He is particularly concerned about the
rivalry of the poet Hoi, le cheval Roi, as Vol-
taire calls him. The Queen protects him, and
is not well disposed to Voltaire, who had been
paying too much court to the King's mistress,
another chienne de la reine. The time is past
when she called Voltaire mon pauvre Voltaire,
and showed so markedly her disapproval of the
claque against Marianne in the pre-English
period. Voltaire feels that he must pay his
court to her, at least indirectly. He uses the
good offices of Moncrif, lecteur de la reine, whose
enmity to Roi was greater than his friendship
to Voltaire. Through him Voltaire lets the
Queen know (M. 36, p. 374), that the Temple
de la Oloire and Voltaire's incense is worth
more than the maussaderie of the Chevalier
9
130 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
de Saint-Michel, -who has joined his voice to that
of the Abbe de Bicetre (i. e., Desfontaines,
author of Avis a M. de Voltaire, sur la sixieme
edition de sa Bataille de Fontenoy). The
medallions of the Pope, the impression of the
Bataille de Fontenoy at the Louvre, and other
marks of favor which Voltaire has received or
is to receive, will be the best reply that Voltaire
can make to such men as Desfontaines (M. 36.
p. 390).
Then came the final struggle to get into the
French Academy. The first reference to it is
probably the three lines to Mme. d'Argental (M.
36, p. 410; end of 1745): "Impossible, im-
possible. Mais il faut absolument que 1'autre
ange vienne dans mon enfer. Vraiment, j'ai de
grandes choses a lui dire." The preliminaries
of peace have just been signed at Turin (M. 36,
p. 412), so that the historical event, presaging
the close of the war, fits into the symbolism of
the coming triumphs of Voltaire and of Zadig.
The only enemy that he has now is Roi, for he
has appeased all court and clerical hostility.
Roi has taken on the appearance of virtue to
insinuate himself into the good graces of the
Queen (M. 36, p. 431) : C'est la seule maniere
ASTABTE 131
de la tromper. Voltaire wishes to dislodge him
from this favor by taking on the appearance of
orthodoxy; that is the only way to deceive her.
Roi is a monster of hell (M. 36, p. 422), qui
pretend qu'on lui a rendu la lyre, et qui fait
imprinter le libelle diffamatoire le plus punis-
sable contre I'Academie et contre moi. The ref- ,
erence is to Hoi's libellous Discours prononce a
la porte de I'Academie franc.aise and the Trir
omphe poetique, a sort of burlesque Odyssey
of all Voltaire's trials and tribulations during
his long career as a man of letters, including
the beatings which he had received. Here is
plainly the character of Itobad, who claims to
be, not merely the poet Roi, but roi de Baby-
lone, qui pretend qu'on lui a rendu la lyre, i. e.,
who claims to be the husband of Astarte.
After Voltaire's triumph, his entrance into
the Academy par la grande porte (i. e., by
twenty-eight out of twenty-nine votes cast), he
bends every effort to discover the publishers
and distributors of the satires of Roi. That
leads him back to his old enemy Desfontaines,
from whom Louis Travenol had received them.
Thus they become the echo of the Voltairomanie.
By the very nature of these libels, with their
132 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIRE'S NOVELS
enumeration of all the evils that had befallen
Voltaire during his chequered life and their
ironical references to his poetic triumphs and
his futile attempts to get into the Academy,
Voltaire is led, it seems to me, to compose his
version of his Triomphe poetique; that is, to
compose his novel Zadig. Here it is not the
satirist who presents the facts of his life, but
the " Truth-teller," the "Witness-bearer." "le
temoin fidele et authentique." But Voltaire does
not compose with the crude art of his rivals ; it
takes no art, in fact, to compose a libel. But
r*it is the climax of art to give an actual, con-
temporaneous historical background to his fic-
tions, to make these fictions represent the actual
experiences through which he had himself
passed, and to raise the whole out of the domain
of the personal, the individual, into the realm
of the typical, the universal, and all in accord-
I ance with a philosophic tendency.
Some features of Voltaire's experiences after
his election to the Academy may have found
their way into his novel. To put down this up-
start, who threatened to eclipse all the court
poets, jealous voices and mercenary pens were
active aa never before. In order to get him
ASTABTE 133
away from the court it was necessary to neutral-
ize the favor of the Pompadour. The old poet
Crebillon was put forward as the Sophocles of the
century. Finally, towards the end of 1747, Mme.
du Chatelet, while playing cards at the Queen's
table, lost an enormous sum. Voltaire's incon-
siderate remark: Vous jouez avec des fripons,
caused the poet and his Emilie to make a pre-
cipitate retreat from Fontainebleau. Voltaire
took refuge with the Duchess of Maine at Sceaux,
where he remained in the strictest seclusion, cor-
responding with Mme. du Chatelet only in a
roundabout way, and by special courier, until
her appearance one day relieved him of his en-
forced confinement (cf. Desnoiresterres, Vol-
taire a la cvur, p. 137, 139, 141).
Voltaire was often obliged to make sudden
and hurried flights, in which he was separated
from his divine Emilie, as at the time of the
persecution for the Lettres philosophiques, and
later for the Mondain, so that the scene de-
scribed above could only favor his symbolism, in
Zadig.
fit is thought that Zadig was composed tt
Sceaux during Voltaire's confinement
Desnoiresterres (op. cii., p. 146 f.) shows that
134 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIRE'S NOVELS
Zadig (or rather Memnon, the name under
which the novel first appeared) could not have
been published before 1748, as he did not leave
Sceaux until the last days of December, 1747.
If the first edition, that of Memnon, is dated
1747, it is not because it was put on sale in that
year, but because it was composed in that year
and sent, perhaps, to the publishers before the
close of the year. It is not unusual for Voltaire
to antedate his works in this manner. Long-
champs tells a strange story about the publica-
tion of Zadig. He says that the work was
given, in two different sections, to two differ-
ent publishers, and the printed copies then bound
together by Voltaire in order to give the first
copies to his friends, before the general public
should receive them (cf . Desnoiresterres, op. tit.,
p. 146 f.). There seems to me to be a basis
of truth in this story, to be accounted for by
Voltaire's pun on the names. Memnon = meme
nom, i. e., it is the same as Zadig. The com-
mentators have dismissed the statement of
Longchamps, on the ground that the first edi-
tion of the work was not called Zadig, but
Memnon, whereas Voltaire's secretary speaks of
Zadig. When he says then, that Zadig was
ASTABTE 136
printed in two different sections, he probably
had in mind the version Memnon and the ver-
sion Zadig, which, by a pun, probably well
known to him at the time but which he had later
forgotten, were really the same work.
In this connection it should be said that the
little skit Memnon, ou la Sagesse, is misdated
in all the editions of the novels. Beuchot thinks
that it was composed in 1750, but the letter of
Stanislas to Voltaire (M. 36, p. 569 ; Jan. 31,
1749) speaks of Memnon and of Zadig, and in
terms which can not apply to Zadig under the
title of Memnon. Besides, there would be no
object in sending to Stanislas at that late date
both the old Memnon (the first edition of Zadig)
and the same work, with some additions, under
the title of Zadig.
"f The composition of Zadig at Sceaux is im-
portant to bear in mind. I It was the Duchess
of Maine who induced Voltaire to treat the same
subject as Crebillon le barbare, to avenge Cicero
for the insults to which the old Tragique sub-
jected him in making him le Mercure de sa fille.
Voltaire could not forgive Crebillon for two
things : first, for his refusal of an approbation to
Mahomet, and second, his usurpation of the
136 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
favor of the Pompadour. That is why, in view
of Voltaire's jousts with him in all the subjects
which he had treated, Zadig is so appropriately
indicated to the Pompadour, and it accounts
alsoibr the burlesque form of approbation which
prefaced the first editions of the novel: "Je
soussigne, qui me suis fait passer pour savant,
et meme pour homme d'esprit, ai lu ce inanu-
scrit, que j'ai trouve, malgre moi, curieux,
amusant, moral, philosophique, digne de plaire
a ceux meme qui hai'ssent les romans. Ainsi je
1'ai decrie, et j'ai assure M. le cadi-lesquier que
c'est un ouvrage detestable." The cadirlesquier
is the commander-in-chief of half of the Turk-
ish empire (there being one for European Tur-
key and one for Asiatic Turkey). The refer-
ence is probably to the garde des sceaux, and
more particularly to the Chancellor d'Aguesseau
(who was garde des sceaux), whose severity for
the Elements de la philosophic de Newton (M.
1, p. 213) Voltaire could not easily forgive, and
whose severity for novels with heretical person-
ages could only arouse Voltaire's scorn and
pity.
The link of association between Mme. du
Chatelet and Mme. de Pompadour, aside from
ASTARTE 137
Voltaire's relations to both "divinities," is to
be found, I think, in a pun. Astarte, as Vol-
taire tells us in the Avertissement de Samson,
was deesse de Syrie; Mme. du Chatelet was
deesse de Cirey, and therefore equivalent to the
Pompadour. The Syrians worshipped a pois-
son; so did Voltaire, Louis XV, and all the
courtiers, for the Pompadour was Mile. Pois-
son. Voltaire's enemies, especially the Envieux,
had attempted to get him into trouble with
Mme. du Chatelet, as well as with the Queen
and the Pompadour, j The relations of the poet
to Mme. du Chatelet are symbolized in the
comedy of the Envieux about as they appear in
the novel for Zadig and Astarte. Ariston, who
figures Voltaire, is the friend of Hortense, who
figures Mme. du Chatelet. Cleon, representing
M. du Chatelet, is provincial governor, of a
tyrannical and brutally jealous disposition, like
Moabdar in Zadig. The Envieux takes advan-
tage of this situation to arouse in Cleon sus-
picions like those of Moabdar. Ariston is
warned to flee, and is about to be seized, when
a fortunate confession of the accomplice of the
Envieux clears the atmosphere. The publica-
tion of the Mondain, with its reference to the
138 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
terrestrial paradise at Cirey, the dedication of
Alzire to Mme. du Chatelet, and the aspersions
of Desfontaines (who had made similar accu-
sations against Voltaire in reference to Mme. de
Bernieres), as indeed the mere residence of
Voltaire with the amiable Marquise, gave rise to
suspicions of a relation quite different from an
innocent Platonic friendship.
The situation must not, however, be taken too
literally ; Voltaire simply wished to give a dra-
matic presentation of the malignant activity of
the Envieux, whose attacks did not spare per-
sonal honor. The same situation reappears in
Zadig: it is Itobad who steals Zadig's white
armor, and puts his green armor in its place.
In his earliest satire, Le Bourbier, Voltaire had
represented these brigands of the forest of Par-
nassus throwing mud at the great men of let-
ters, i. e., besmirching their reputation.
Astarte then is primarily Voltaire's muse.
His love for her is his love for the belles-lettres.
He first makes her acquaintance at the time of
\ the Regency. Although she is Queen, she is
at the same time the slave of a despot. The
desire to possess her favors in full, i. e., the
x, desire for liberty of speech for the man of
ASTABTE 139
letters, brings disaster upon her and her lover:
c'est I' avilissement des beaux-arts et le servi-
tude de rhomme de lettres of which Voltaire so
often complains. The type of literature repre-
sented by the inspiration of Missouf takes her
place. The folly and madness of war, droit des
brigands que nous nommons heros, complete her
degradation, whether it is caused by the warring
of kings or of literary men. But there is no
doubt about her final triumph and her union
with one of the Immortals, i. e. } not merely a
member of the French Academy, but an author
whose works will live for seons of time.
We meet with precisely the same symbolism
in Candide. Voltaire sought at Frederick's
court the freedom of thought which was refused
him in France. The burning of the Akdkia
was enough to cause him to flee that country for
ever. Cunegonde is comparable in every re-
spect to Astarte ; it is the satire and the personal
application that account for any differences in
the two characters. When Voltaire arrived on
the shores of Lake Leman he would have pre-
ferred to live the quiet life of a country gentle-
man; he did not want Cunegonde any more.
He took her only to spite the young baron
140 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
Thunder-ten-tronckh. So Voltaire continued his
attacks, or rather redoubled them, against the
symbol of intolerance, less from love of letters
than from hatred of persecution.
CHAPTER VI
ABIMAZE
ARIMAZE, the Envious, is one of the charac-
ters of Zadig which shows prima facie evidence
that Voltaire had his own life and its experi-
ences as the basis of his novel. There is no
epithet in his correspondence with which he is
so prodigal ; all his enemies are des envieux et
des ingrats. His comedy of the Envieux, his
Ode sur I' Ingratitude, as well as his Discours
sur I'Envie (one of the Discours en vers sur
I'homme), are sufficient evidence of a personal /
application of the episode of Zadig to his envi-
ous detractors in general, and to Desfontaines,
Rousseau, and Roi in particular.
What is the meaning of the symbol? Ari-
maze is the Arimane of the Magians, the evil
principle, the devil. The devil is represented
as a fallen angel, who rebelled against God
from envy. Arimaze is described under the
traits of the evil one. " Vis-a-vis de sa maison \
demeurait Arimaze, personnage dont la mechante
141
142 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIBE'S NOVELS
ame etait peinte sur sa grossiere physionomie.
II etait ronge de fiel et bouffi d'orgueil, et pour
comble, c'etait un bel esprit ennuyeux." He is
represented as distorting and perverting every-
thing that Zadig does. Besides, Voltaire could
not well lay his scene among the ancient Magians
without some such character. It afforded him
an excellent opportunity to show the parallelism
between the Zoroastrian cult and Christianity,
and to explain, by the creation of a symbolic
character, all such allegories as the good and the
evil principle, God and the devil, good angel
and bad, etc.
Apart from these considerations Voltaire was
persecuted by people whose God was more like
our conception of the devil than anything else.
This persecution began after Voltaire's re-
turn from England with the publication of
the Lettres philosophiques, in one of which he
attacked Pascal on the subject of the fall of
man. Voltaire's attack on the Jansenists is
due to his occupation with the philosophy
of the .English Optimists. Voltaire embraced
this philosophy in its great features; he says
that Pope's Essay on Man is a poetic repre-
sentation of his Thoughts on Pascal. In so
ARIMAZE 143
far as this philosophy did not include the fall
of man and did not lead people to believe that
things were all right for man in a state of so-
ciety and not only need not but could not be
changed, Voltaire embraced it heartily. Let
me outline the main features of this philosophy
as Voltaire conceived them.
In the first place, it proved that man is as he
always has been, a creature subject to death,
like every other created thing; for an immortal
man, except in a symbolic sense, was a contra-
diction in terms. It was the height of folly,
absurdity and madness to imagine that man was
a beautiful creature once, in a place where there
was no evil, until he ate an apple, whereupon
God kicked him out of paradise. Pascal con-
tended that the Biblical narrative of the fall of
man must be true, because it alone explained
the astonishing contradictions in man. Voltaire
replied that the Androgynes o'^lato, the good
and evil principle of the Magians, Osiris and
Typhon among the Egyptians, Prometheus and
Pandora among the Greeks, etc., offered similar
explanations. That was no proof of the verity
of religion. It was just as foolish to offer these
explanations for the evil in the world as it
144 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIRE'S NOVELS
would be to say of horses, for example, that
they were beautiful and good and had no work
to do until one of them took it into his head to
eat some oats, whereupon all horses were con-
demned to a life of suffering and torment. If
man is necessarily mortal, it is but natural that
he should be crushed if a boulder should fall
upon him, that he should be killed if the light-
ning struck him, that he should be drowned if
he fell into the water and could not swim and
there were no one to aid himj For God, then,
there was no mal physique. There was physical
suffering, to be sure, but that was a different
.^thing, a necessary consequence of man's state-_
j^p-^/dof-being-man, exactly comparable to the phys-
ical suffering of all the other animals from the
ea to the mammoth.
In the second place, man is endowed, like
all the other animals, with needs, and hence
with passions. Passion means, etymologically,
suffering, because there is no feeling-of-the-
lack-of-a-thing without the suffering occa-
sioned by that lack, the absence, of the
thing desirecLj Thus man, without passions,
as depicted in the paradisiacal state, is a con-
tradiction in terms, and must always have been
AEIMAZE 146
so. Man is endowed of necessity with passions,
otherwise he would be not-man, would be an
x
entirely different order of creation. Qod has
given^jus two fine main-springs of our__being :
passions to makfi us act T and reason to control
our passions L self-love to enable " t
9ur being riH strive fpr mir wejl-being, and
pjtv," bienyeillance^ to keep us^fron^inflicting
needless injury on our fellow beings and to in-
cline us to aid them. Thus there is for God
no mat moral; man could not be made on a
better plan. There is moral suffering, to be
sure, just as there is physical suffering, but
that is an inevitable consequence of man's
being-man.
Voltaire's opponents, the Jansenists, with
Racine fils and Rousseau and his associate Des-
fontaines at their head, together with the old
Bishop of Mirepoix, seemed to consider that
Voltaire was the apologist of chance, "le has-
ard.^ Voltaire was not, however; the word is
senseless, he says (M. 23, p. 177). Certainly,
a man who falls into the river because he ven-
tured out on a broken bridge did not fall "by
chance," any more than a man who threw him-
self from the top of a tower would be killed " by
10
146 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
chance." There is no such thing as "
everything is in accordance with eternal laws.
The difference between Voltaire's philosophy on
the one hand, and that of the Jansenists, and,
in general, of the Christians, on the other, is
the assigning of motives-of-the-divinity to all
that is. The man who aims at the heart of an
innocent fellow-being does so, to be sure, in ac-
cordance with, because not contrary to, divine
laws; but to say with the partisans of absolute
fatality, whether among the Jansenists or among
the Mohammedans, that it is God who strikes
by their hands, who pillages, burns, kills, steals,
rapes, through their humble ministry, what is
that but worshipping the devil ? And Voltaire
does not hesitate to speak the word in his Dis-
cours en vert sur I'homme:
"Let tristes partisans de ce dogme effroyable
Diraient-ils rien de plus s'ils adoraient le diablef "
This exposition belongs more properly under
the chapter on the Angel Jesrad, but it is neces-
sary here in order to show why Voltaire em-
bodied his characterization of his persecutors
under the symbol of the devil of the ancient
Magians.
ABIMAZE 147
Now, for Voltaire's enemies, the man who
proved the existence of God but denied the fall
of man was an atheist; he sapped the founda-
tions of Christianity, for, if there was no fall
of man, there was no necessity for redemption,
and the mission of Jesus Christ was an impos-
ture born of madness and stupidity. To combat
Pascal, with his premise of a man-without-pas-
sions, into whose body the devil entered and who
goes about the world like a raging lion seeking
whom he may devour, was to confess oneself an
atheist. To write the Mondain, proving that
the terrestrial paradise was in the present siecle
de fer rather than in the fabled age ffor, was to
advocate atheism. To say, as did Voltaire,
that God could have given the faculty of thought
to matter in certain organization, just as matter
is organized to have sensations, was to deny the
existence of the soul independent of the body,
and hence to confess oneself an atheist. For,
be it always remembered, the religious fanatics
of all times and of all lands, have been blinded
by this fallacious belief : If you do not believe
in my God, you do not believe in any God.
Kow what does Voltaire do in Zadigf He
gives us, in his own way, the various conceptions
148 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIBE'S NOVELS
of the devil: he is Orcan, Arimaze, the Prince
d'Hyrcanie, Cletofis, Arbogad, Itobad, and
finally, the Angel Jesrad. Each devil has his
particular characteristics, his particular field of
activity, like the characterization by Calmet (M.
17, p. 434), or that of Le Sage, in the Diable
boiteux. Orcan is the court devil; Arimaze is
the devil of Parnassus; the Prince d'Hyrcanie
is either the Prince of the Hyrcinian forests,
i. e., the Prince of darkness, or he is the north-
wind, the typhoon; Cletofis is Asmodeus.
By what association of ideas did Voltaire
make Arimaze the devil of the Republic of Let-
ters? It is my theory that he read into the
name Ariniane the significance of un ane qui
rime, a poetaster, and that Arimaze is its equiva-
lent, i. e., that -aze, from asinus, represents -ane,
for ane. My purpose is to show, (1), the readi-
ness of Voltaire to see the connotation of ane
in any syllable fairly like it, and (2), the same
significance for -aze. Then I shall show in
what way he applied the epithet to Rousseau,
Desfontaines, and Roi.
One of the earliest illustrations of the conno-
tation of ane in a similar syllable is found in a
letter to Thieriot (M. 33, p. 87 ; early in 1723) :
ARIMAZE 149
"Je m'en retourne ce soir a la Riviere (i. e.,
Riviere-Bourdet, residence of Mme. la presi-
dente de Bernieres, near Rouen), pour partager
mes soins entre une dnesse et Marianne." Vol-
taire seems to be punning on the final syllable
of Marianne.
Boyer signed himself one. (for ancien) eveque
de Mirepoix, which gave Voltaire his ane de
Mirepoix.
Freron, author of the Annee litteraire, is
dubbed the ane litteraire.
The Rescrit de I'Empereur de la Chine, a
satire on Jean Jacques Rousseau and Mauper-
tuis, is dated the first day of the month of Hi
Han (i. e., the bray of the ass, equivalent to
April Fool).
The Extrait de la sacree congregation de Vin-
quisition de Rome' (M. '23, p. 464) is signed:
Coglione-Coglionaccio, cardinal-president. Et
plus bos (these words appear in the signature
to indicate the obscene allusion in the names)
Cazzo-Culo, secretaire du Saint-Office.
Voltaire's Lettre de Demad (M. 24, p. 91),
like the Rescrit de I'Empereur de la Chine, is
dated April 1, but the Hi Han of the latter is
replaced by Zastrou.
150 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIKE'S NOVELS
The allusions are evidently to the dne and
asinus as a phallic animal. The Pucelle is ade-
quate illustration of this. Besides the ane aile
of Saint Denis we have the muleteer, metamor-
phosed into an ass, and serving, (1) to trans-
form the passionateless "virgin" Corisandre
into a voluptuous matron, and (2) to minister
to the lust of Hermaphrodix in his double qual-
ity of man and woman.
That Voltaire should see the connotation of
rimer, rimailler in Arimaze is not surprising
to one who notes his fondness for a pun. Some
illustrations of this habit may well be in place
here.
The French Resident at Geneva, M. Hennin,
was involved in the dissensions of the little Re-
public. Voltaire refers to the civil war of
Geneva as la guerre d' Hennin, i. e., la guerre
des nains.
Vade, the name of a writer of short-stories, is
one of the names assumed by Voltaire. He
puns on it as though it were Latin : vade retro;
vade mecum. He entitles his work published
under that name, from a pun on it: Fadaises.
A fellow by the name of Coge, who, with Ri-
ballier, headed the opposition against Marmon-
ARIMAZE 151
tel's Belisaire, in which the author dared to
assert that the great and noble men of antiquity
were not burning in hell, is apostrophized as
Coge pecus: Collect your flock (i. e., your horde
of persecutors, your herd of sheep, asses, swine,
etc.).
Freron is a frelon. French frelon = English
wasp. He appears under the latter name in the
Ecossaise.
Morellet, one of the staunch defenders of the
philosophical party, is urged on to more vigor-
ous attacks by a pun on his name: Mords-les!
Clement, successor of Desfontaines, is not
Clement Marot, but Clement Maraud.
Omer Joly de Fleury, who assailed the En-
cyclopedie and its authors, is neither Homere,
nor joli, nor fleuri. The next step in Voltaire's
association of ideas is that he is a thorn without
the flower, just as Mirepoix is a cheval without
a head. He is therefore called Acanthos: flos
espinosa, a thorny shrub.
The last illustration is similar to the Akakia.
I have never seen it mentioned that Maupertuis
himself gave occasion to Voltaire to form this
name. In his Lettres sur les progres des sci-
ences, Maupertuis said that he was willing to
152 SYMBOLISM OP VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
publish these reveries provided the reader took
them sans malice. He evidently did not know
Voltaire. Because Maupertuis had said some
foolish things about doctors, Voltaire makes a
doctor take up the cudgels for his profession.
How appropriate to take the name of a doctor of
Frangois I er ! (i. e., Voltaire's doctor, as Fran-
QOIS Arouet). But sans malice is not the only
connotation in the name. The AJcakia is like
the Acanthos: it is of the prickly species, from
which is extracted something like the poix resine
by which Maupertuis would arrive at the age of
the Biblical patriarchs, or that of the inhabitants
of Eldorado. It is also a word like that applied
to the philosophers: Cacouacs, the "bad" peo-
ple; Akakia is "against bad people," "against
badness," a remedy for evil humors, then, by ex-
tension, the good doctor who purges Maupertuis
of his evil humours, like Diafoirus of the
Malade imaginaire.
How did Voltaire associate' Rousseau, Des-
fontaines, and the poet Roi under the symbol
of Arimaze ?
The obvious association is their character as
Envieux, but there are other reasons. It was
Voltaire's uniform practice to get the inspira-
ABIMAZE 153
tion for his satire from the writings of his ene- {
mies. " I avenged myself on Kousseau by quot- c f p|
ing his verses," he says. That he studied the
works of Rousseau is evident from a number of
references throughout his correspondence and
some parallels which I shall point out. Refer-
ring to the Enfant prodigue he writes to Cide-
ville (M. 34, p. 183 f.): "J'ai fait cet enfant
pour repondre a une partie des impertinentes
epitres de Rousseau, oil cet auteur des A'ieux
chimeriques et des plus mauvaises pieces de
theatre que nous ayons, ose donner des regies
sur la comedie. J'ai voulu faire voir a ce doc-
teur flamand que la comedie pouvait tres-bien
reunir 1'interet et le plaisant." The A'ieux
chimeriques of Rousseau is based on the associa-
tion of names by similarity in sound. Galba-
non, one of the characters, is explained as c'est
comme qui dirait nom de Galba. The Comtesse
de Critognac traces her ancestry back to a noble
Auvergnac, mentioned in Caesar's Commen-
taries. The Jew Esdras blossoms out as the
noble Adramon. Dorante traces his ancestry
back to Dorus, son of Doris and Jupiter, King
of the Dorians (CEuvres de Jean-Baptiste Rous-
seau, Nouvelle edition, 1743, Vol. 3, p. 7 ff.).
154 SYMBOLISM OP VOLTAIRE'S NOVELS
What more natural than that the " malin"
Voltaire should trace Rousseau's ancestry back
to the devil ?
Rousseau defends his comedy against the
Abbe d'Olivet (op. cit., p. 361), who had criti-
cised his play on names as contrary to reality.
He expresses surprise that the Abbe has not
found the original of the Comtesse de Critognac
in Paris, as it the most common thing in the
world for people to seek their origin in the simi-
larity of names more far-fetched than those of
his comedy seem to be. " C'est de quoi M. Le
Laboureur, qu'on vient de reimprimer, se plaint
en une infinite d'endroits de ses additions, et
pour peu qu'on ait lu de livres de genealogies,
on y trouvera des originaux d'extravagance plus
extraordinaires que tout ce que j'ai pu imaginer
dans ma copie. Cela est si vrai que la plus grande
partie des bons mots de la piece que vous avez
lue, sont pris de contes que j'ai ou'i faire autre-
fois a la cour, de la feue Marechale de . . . ,
de la vieille Marquise de . . . , et d'autres ; et si
vous en doutez, vous n'avez qu'a mettre votre
amie Mad. de Castelnau sur le chapitre de cette
premiere, vous en reconnaitrez plusieurs, et vous
verrez que ce n'est point par le defaut d'origi-
naux que la piece peche."
CHAPTER VII
AKBOGAD
WHAT is the significance of the name and the
episode of Arbogad? Gad, in Hebrew, means
God and also robber. How can God be a rob-
ber? How can a robber be God? And what
has Arbo- to do with the name? How can a
robber be the God of the trees, or God be the
robber of the trees ? And why does not the God-
robber, or the robber-God, live among the treea
of which he is the robber or the God, or both,
instead of living on the confines of Syria and
Ardbie Petree?
It is not possible that Voltaire is composing
here without a purpose; there is too much
method in his madness : the episode is too clear
cut, too natural, too well-wrought, and, in addi-
tion, it bears too strong a resemblance to other
variations on the theme of brigandage in Vol-
taire's works, as Martinguerre in the 'Pucelle,
Vanderdendur and Thunder-ten-tronckh in
Candide, and the brigandage of literature
165
166 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIRE'S NOVELS
throughout the poet's correspondence. The epi-
sode should not be dismissed offhand as one of
Voltaire's caprices ; on the contrary, it deserves
to be investigated with the utmost care. Let us,
therefore, consider the episode as the author
gives it.
This is the episode (M. 21, p. 71 ff.) : "En
arrivant aux frontieres qui separent 1'Arabie
Petree de la Syrie, comme il passait pres d'un
chateau assez fort, des Arabes armes en sorti-
rent. II se vit entoure ; on lui criait : ' Tout ce
que vous avez nous appartient, et votre personne
appartient a notre maitre/ Zadig, pour re-
ponse, tira son epee; son valet, qui avait du
courage, en fit autant. Us renverserent morts
les premiers Arabes qui mirent la main sur eux ;
le nombre redoubla: ils ne s'etonnerent point,
et resolurent de perir en combattant. On voyait
deux hommes se def endre contre une multitude ;
un tel combat ne pouvait durer longtemps. Le
maitre du chateau, nomine Arbogad, ayant vu
d'une fenetre les prodiges de valeur que faisait
Zadig, concut de 1'estime pour lui. II descendit
en hate, et vint lui-meme ecarter ses gens, et
deliverer les deux voyageurs. 'Tout ce qui
passe sur mes terres est a moi, dit-il, aussi bien
ARBOGAD 167
que ce que je trouve sur les terres des autres;
mais vous me paraissez un si brave homme que
je vous exempte de la loi commune.' II le fit
entrer son chateau, ordonnant a ses gens de le
bien traiter; et, le soir, Arbogad voulut souper
avec Zadig.
"Le seigneur du chateau etait un de ces
Arabes qu'on appelle voleurs; mais il faisait
quelquefois de bonnes actions parmi une foule
de mauvaises; il volait avec une rapacite
f urieuse, et donnait liberalement : intrepide dans
Faction, assez doux dans le commerce, debauche
a table, gai dans la debauche, et surtout plein de
franchise. Zadig lui plut beaucoup; sa con-
versation, qui s'anima, fit durer le repas; enfin
Arbogad lui dit : ' Je vous conseille de vous en-
roler sous moi, vous ne sauriez mieux f aire ; ce
metier-ci n'est pas mauvais; vous pourrez un
jour devenir ce que je suis.'
" Puis-je vous demander, dit Zadig, de-
puis quel temps vous exercez cette noble pro-
fession ?
" Des ma plus tendre jeunesse, reprit le
seigneur. J'etais valet d'un Arabe asser ha-
bile ; ma situation m'etait insupportable. J'etais
au desespoir de voir que, dans toute la terre
168 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIBE'S NOVELS
qui appartient egalement aux hommes, la des-
tinee ne m'eut pas reserve ma portion. Je
confiai mes peines a un vieil Arabe, qui me dit :
' Mon fils, ne desesperez pas ; il y avait autref ois
un grain de sable qui se lamentait d'etre un
atome ignore dans les deserts; au bout de quel-
ques annees il devint diamant, et il est a present
le plus bel ornement de la couronne du roi des
Indes.' Ce discours me fit impression; j'etais
le grain de sable, je resolus de devenir diamant.
Je commengai par voler deux chevaux; je
m'associai des camarades ; je me mis en etat de
voler de petites caravanes : ainsi je fis cesser peu
a peu la disproportion qui etait d'abord entre
les hommes et moi. J'eus ma part aux biens
de ce monde, et je fus meme dedommage avec
usurer on me considera beaucoup: je devins
seigneur brigand; j'acquis ce chateau par voie
de fait. Le satrape de Syrie voulut m'en "His^
posseder ; mais j'etais deja trop riche pour avoir
rien a craindre; jedonnai del'argent au satrape,
moyennant quoi je conservai ce chateau, et
j'agrandis mes domaines; il me nomma meme
tresorier des tributs que 1' Arabic Petree payait
au roi des rois. Je fis ma charge de receveur,
et point du tout celle de payeur."
ARBOGAD 169
Arbogad also informs Zadig that the times are
especially good for plundering, now that Moab-
dar is dead. Everything is in confusion in
Babylon. He does not know, and does not care,
what has become of Astarte; she may have
passed through his hands. He seized every-
thing that he could, but he did not keep it, he
sold it to the highest bidder. He has heard,
however, of the incursions of the Prince d'Hyr-
canie, perhaps she is among his concubines.
While talking he drank with so much courage
that his ideas became confused. He kept re-
peating that he was the happiest of men, and
urged Zadig not to worry any more about the
fate of Astarte. Finally, gradually made
drowsy by the fumes of the wine, he went to
bed and slept tranquilly all night. Zadig, how-
ever, passed the night in the greatest agitation,
continually contrasting the fate of his Astarte
with that of the robber Arbogad. The next
morning he inquired of all the inhabitants of
the chateau if they knew anything of Astarte,
but they were too busy to pay any attention to
him. They had taken new booty during the
night, and the most that he could obtain from
them was the permission to depart. He availed
170 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
himself of this permission without delay, and
started on his way to Babylon.
The question that confronts us now is, what
did Voltaire mean by this episode? It is ob-
vious that we must determine from his works
to whom he most consistently gives the epithet
of voleur, and be guided by an analysis of the
episode itself in our interpretation of it.
To me the salient points in this episode are
the following:
First: Arbogad's motto is: Cette terre est a
moi. He is the absolute lord of it; he is the
Seigneur.
Second: Arbogad has no right to his lands
except that of brigandage; the right of might
or ruse.
Third : Arbogad owes his elevation in ultimo
to an apologue, the grain of sand which became
diamond. The ultimate source of all his ac-
tions is the envy which the grain of sand bears
toward the diamond.
Fourth: Arbogad was not only lord of his
own lands, but was the fermier-general of others ;
he is receveur but not payeur of the tribute of
Arable Petree.
Fifth: Arbogad's portrait: he has some good
ARBOGAD 171
qualities among a host of evil ones. He honors
valor; he comes to the aid of Zadig against his
own troops. Although he robbed with furious
rapacity, he gave liberally. He was intrepid in
battle, rather pleasant in social intercourse ; de-
bauched at table, but gay in his debauche; a
wine-bibber and great eater, lingering long at
dinner; good raconteur, remarkable for his
frankness, and always eager to enroll new re-
cruits.
Now it seems to me that the key to Voltaire's
symbolism in this episode is Arbogad's motto:
Cette terre est a moi. Let us consider this
symbolism, with all its probable ramifications.
In the first place, who is entitled to say:
" Cette terre est a moi seul ; tout ce qui vient sur
mes terres est a moi; tout ce que vous avez
m'appartient ; votre personne m'appartient ? "
Clearly, for Voltaire, there can be but one inter-
pretation, in ultimo, of the symbol: it is the
symbol of the Infdme, the symbol of Intoler- f
ance, le ml tyran de I'esprit. Where did he
meet this symbol ? Everywhere : in religion, in
politics, in literature; it was the spirit of the
18th century. But keeping to the literal sig-
nificance of the motto: Cette terre est a moi,
172 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
who was entitled to raise that cry, or who arro-
gated to himself that right ? Clearly there were
only three classes of persons who could repeat
Arbogad's motto, namely, (1), the gods, (2),
their vicars on earth, especially the kings and
the popes, and (3), the vicars of the vicars of the
gods, les serviteurs des serviteurs de Dieu, and
of the kings; in short, whoever speaks in their
name and with their authority. These terms
are mutually equivalent, for the title of the
popes is le serviteur des serviteurs de Dieu; the
popes are kings of the earth ; the popes are gods
on earth, as are also the kings; every ecclesias-
tical prince, as also every nobleman, is king of
his own territory; even the fermiers-generaux
are called plebeian kings in Babouc.
There is danger of equivocation here, unless
we define our terms. I am not concerned with
any philosophical or metaphysical discussion of
the divinity that shapes our ends, or of the God
of any sect; ! I am concerned solely with the idea
of God and of his vicars on earth that pervades
all Voltaire's works. To him the God of the
Christians was a monster of intolerance, by vir-
tue of his cry ; " I am thy God and thou shalt
have no other God but me." Cf. M. 17, p. 476,
ARBOGAD 173
577, 581. Voltaire says also (Essai sur les
mceurs, Beuchot 18, pp. 144r-145) that Chris-
tianity has produced only crimes and assassina-
tions by its intolerance / quiconque ne pense pas
comme nous est reprouve, et il faut avoir les
reprouves en horreur. If Voltaire had been con-
vinced that God had revealed himself to the
wretched Jews, and that their God was really
the Creator of the universe, his attitude would
have been different. But he looked upon their
God as a man after David's own heart: a re-
morseless brigand, a debauchee, passionate even
to bestiality, rapacious as Joseph, their first
fermier-general, and the type of the Jews of all
times, reducing man body and soul to a state of
abject slavery. Wherever we find in Voltaire
a symbol of tyranny, of exclusive domination,
of intolerance in short, we will find inevitably
at the bottom of it the God of the Garden, insa-
tiable of our misfortunes in this world and in
the next. It is impossible not to recognize him
in Arbogad and his motto. "You are mine,
body and soul, and all that you have is mine;
believe in me, enroll yourself under me, spread
my gospel with fire and sword, and you will be
saved; otherwise you will be damned in this
174 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
life and the next and burn forever in hell-fire."
It is impossible not to recognize him in the
name of the Westphalian Baron Thunder-ten-
tronckh, the thunderer among the trees of the
garden, who, whether Senior or Junior, whether
of the Old Testament or of the New, wants
everything for himself, especially whatever is
dearest to man: liberty, life, happiness, wealth,
etc. He appears in Voltaire's works in a score
of forms, like the old Proteus of the Greeks,
but he can always be held fast by the trail of his
rapacious tyranny.
Of course there is a sense in which one can
say of God that everything is his, to give and to
take away as he pleases. There is a sense in
which every man can say with Job : " The Lord
hath given, the Lord hath taken away; blessed
be the name of the Lord." That is an eternal
verity which nobody will contest, in a certain
sense. But certainly the Creator of the uni-
verse has not given to any one of our fellow-
beings the right to speak in his name, to rob
in his name, to burn, to rape, and slay in his
name and for his greater glory, the right to cry
(M. 9, p. 388) :
ABBOGAD 176
" Ce n'est pas moi, c'est lui qui manque a ma parole,
Qui frappe par mes mains, pille, brule, viole."
Could the partisans of such a frightful dogma,
Voltaire asks, say more, if they worshipped the
devil ?
To Voltaire the origin of evil in the world
was to be traced* not to man's passions as such,
but to the fact that they became justified, in
the course of time, through the misuse of the
name of the Deity. What will the people not
endure from the tyranny of a king, if they are
persuaded that he is the Lord's anointed, that he
rules by divine right, that he, like the pope,
can do no wrong ? Efface such a conception : let
the people see that the Deity has nothing to do
with the manner in which man conducts him-
self, that his reason has been given him to serve
as his criterion as to what is best for him, and
tyranny, and persecution in the name of God
will cease utterly. To all legislators who spoke
to the people in the name of the Deity, Voltaire
would speak thus (Essai sur les Mceurs, Beu-
chot 15, p. 243) : " Arrete, ne compromets pas
ainsi la Divinite; tu veux me tromper si tu la
f ais descendre pour enseigner ce que nous savons
176 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
tons; tu veux sans doute la faire servir a quel-
que autre usage; tu veux te prevaloir de mon
consentement a des verites eternelles pour ar-
racher de moi mon consentement a ton usurpa-
tion. Je te defere au peuple comme un tyran
qui blaspheme."
The example of Arbogad's motto: Cette terre
est a moi, which will be most readily recalled,
is that of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob : " All that land I give unto thee and thy
descendants forever." The oracles 'of the Jews
promised them not only the land of Canaan,
flowing with milk and honey, but the dominion
of the earth; they, whose number was as small
and insignificant as a few scattered grains of
sand, were to be as the grains of sand of the
desert : uncounted millions ; the whole world was
to be blessed in the seed of Abraham. These
oracles they took in a literal sense (Essai sur
Us mceurs, Beuchot 15, p. 138), but the Chris-
tians interpreted them in a figurative sense.
The Jews, enriched in Egypt by farming the
revenues, their favorite occupation ever since,
robbed the Egyptians of their golden vessels,
were led into the deserts by their Arbogad,
where they languished for forty years, and
ABBOGAD 177
finally took possession of a little kingdom by
the most odious rapacities in history. 1 They
told the Moabites that their God had given
them this land, just as the God of the Moabites
had given them their land. The God of the
Jews was so thoroughly a tribal God that he
could conquer on the mountains, but not in the
valleys. So the God of every little nation was
thoroughly a tribal God, made in the image of
the brigand who first used the name of the deity
to justify his usurpation. The literal meaning
of the name of the Egyptian' deity Osiris, Vol-
taire tells us (M. 18, p. 358), is the motto of
Arbogad: Cette terre est a moi. In every war
in historical times, and even the wars of which
mythology tells us, the tribal gods fought at the
head of the tribes to determine the question:
A qui est cette terre? They were all made in
man's own image, but with his passions infi-
nitely magnified: infinitely jealous, envious,
avaricious, brutal, etc. One can easily see in
what a variety of forms Voltaire can present
such a conception of the divinity. He is Sacro-
1 It may not be out of place to emphasize the fact that
this interpretation of the Jews and their God is Vol-
taire's; I merely reproduce it.
12
178 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
gorgon in the Pucelle: the grand inquisitor
whose Medusa head turns men's hearts to stone.
He is Martinguerre in the same poem, voleur
de jour, voleur de nuit, mais saintement a la
merge attache, who, in times of confusion seizes
everything that he can lay his hands on, and
whose head is cut off by an intrepid English-
woman : symbolic of England's deliverance from
the papacy in the war started by Martin Luther.
He appears in Vanderdendur, the lover of
riches and the perpetrator of inhuman cruelties
to secure them. He is particularly the lover of
virgins; witness Voltaire's Pucelle and the
origin of Christianity. The Jews were com-
manded by their Arbogad to kill every living
thing, except des jeunes filles nubiles. He is
the lover of old women who have fallen once or
more times; he takes them unto himself, and
incidentally their wealth also. As the God who
spoke to Moses face to face but still showed
himself only par dernere, he is Hermaphrodix,
Conculix, Cacambo, like Diafoirus, qui nest
pas accoutume a parler aux visages. He is the
God of incest, since he is the father of himself
by his mother, as in Voltaire's first' symbolic
work, CEdipe. As the phallic God, what is his
ARBOGAD 179
symbol ? The winged ass of the Pucelle, whose
favors he finally gets.
For Voltaire the three impostors, Moses,
Jesus Christ, __flnd Mohammed, all followed
identical plans: those of Arbogad. They all
raised his cry : Cette terre est a moi. " The
earth is mine and the fullness thereof." Vol-
taire says (M. 25, p. 131): " Christianity jwas
established by imposture and madness. An im-
postor harangues the dregs of society in a barn,
and the impostors who succeed him soon inhabit
palaces." Yet Moses, Jesus Christ, and Mo-
hammed, came after the earth had been appor-
tioned; the lots had been cast; everybody was
in peaceful possession of his own. But the
dregs of society j*an eagerlyjafter an ambitious
impostor^ who told them that he haocome to
save them, and that theirs should be the domin-
ion of the earth. Cf. especially I dees repub-
licaines, M. 24, p. 414, where the parallel be-
tween Arbogad and the robber-God of the Chris-
tians is very clear. He aroused their envy and
their cupidity. The impostors of the new sect
of Christianity used the oracles of the Jews
about the sands of the desert to designate the
world dominion of the new sect (M. 18, p. 427
180 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIBE'S NOVELS
f.). Peter is the grain of sand, or the stone,
of the desert, which became diamond. It was
no use to tell the choleric Gregory VII, Pope
Hildebrand, or, as the Germans call him, Pope
Hollenbrand, that it was only a question of the
celestial empire. Maudit damne, he cried, il
s'agit du terrestre, et il vous damnait, et il vous
faisait pendre sil pouvait. More profound
minds, Voltaire adds, went further in their
demonstrations: if Jesus had renounced the
kingdom of the earth, it must all the more be-
long to his vicar the Pope. Who had a better
claim to what the master cast off than the loyal
servant of that master ? So the papal Arbogad
claimed the dominion of the whole world.
There was not a single usurpation since the time
of Gregory that did not get its authorization
from the vicar of Christ (Essai sur les Mceurs,
Beuchot 16, p. 260). And the deposed king
was expected to say : " The Lord hath given, the
Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of
the Lord." The Lord was Arbogad. Even the
new kingdoms, discovered and conquered by
horrible atrocities, in the New World, were
parceled out by Arbogad, who stole with such
furious rapacity and gave so liberally.
ABBOGAD 181
In what way is Arbogad the symbol of the
kings of Europe? By divine right; they are
the Lord's anointed. Christmeims anointed; ,
therefore every king is a Christ, an Arbogad.
In what respect is a king a robber ? Every first
king is a robber, a brigand, voleur de grand
chemin, as Voltaire says in a score of places
(cf. Annales de I'Empire, Beuchot 23, p. 93;
and Essai sur les Mosurs, Beuchot 17, p. 447).
In the second place, the kings with whom Vol-
taire came into contact, especially Louis XV
and Frederick, were despots, were like any
voleur de grand chemin. " A prince who, with-
out justice, and without the formality of estab-
lished laws, imprisons or puts away a citizen,
is a highwayman, whom we call Your Majesty "
(M. 23, p. 530). Voltaire had gone almost as
far as that in his English Letters (M. 22, p.
103 f.) : "The English are the only nation of
the earth that has succeeded in limiting the
power of the king by law, and leaving him all
liberty to do good, has tied his hands to do evil.
Other nations have shed as much blood as the
English in the cause of liberty, but it has only
served to cement their bondage." It is plain,
therefore, that Arbogad, qui faisait quelquefois
182 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIRE'S NOVELS
de bonnes actions parmi une joule de mauvaises,
is every king of Europe, and of the world, ex-
cept the English king.
Kings and popes have their subordinate brig-
ands. Every ecclesiastical prince of Germany
was an Arbogad; every religious order, exempt
from taxation, had as its head an Arbogad, de-
voured with the rage of amassing wealth.
Every fermier-general, to whom a portion of
the kingdom was given pour le travailler en
finance, as Voltaire calls it (M. 10, p. 57), was
an Arbogad, who robbed and ravaged in the
name of his master. The Arbogad of Zadig
says that he was appointed receiver of the
tribute which Arabic Petree paid to the King
of Kings. The King of Kings was, in one sense,
the Pope. The ecclesiastical princes and the
religious orders, especially those of Germany,
collected Peter's pence, i. e., the tribute of
Arable Petree, but did not always turn it into
the coffers of the King of Kings. It was this
tribute, Voltaire says, which turned Germany,
Holland, and England away from the Holy
Eoman Catholic Church. In another sense the
King of France was the King of Kings. The
kings of whom he was the king are called by Vol-
ABBOGAD 183
taire in Babouc (M. 21, p. 7) "forty plebeyan
kings." One could quote a score of passages
from Voltaire's works where he has raised his
voice against the traiianis, who laid waste the
kingdom and kept nine-tenths of their ill-gotten
gains. Babouc concluded from the shameless
traffic in the dignities of the empire and from
the depredations of the plebeyan kings, that the
Angel Ituriel would not have to destroy Perse-
polis, for the inhabitants would exterminate
themselves by their evil internal administra-
tion. Thus every little roitelet of the fermiers-
generaux was entitled to raise the cry of Arbo-
gad: Cette terre est a moi et tout ce que vous
avez m'appartient de droit divin.
Voltaire had just had an unpleasant experi-
ence with one of them, whose name, Michel, as
that of the messenger and agent of the Biblical
Arbogad, fitted most happily into his symbolism.
"Un certain Michel, a qui j'avais confie une
partie de ma fortune, s'est avise de faire la
plus horrible banqueroute que mortel financier
puisse faire. C'etait un receveur general des
finances de Sa Majeste. Or je ne congois que
mediocrement comment un receveur general des
finances peut faire banqueroute sans etre un
184 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
fripon " (Letter to Cideville from Brussels, Oct.
28, 1741 ; M. 36, p. 104). Voltaire had already
written to Thieriot (M. 36, p. 102) that Michel
had taken 32500 livres, " soit en rentes, soit en
argent comptant ; mais je le crois plus a plaindre
que moi," he adds. "II vivait splendidement
du bien d'autrui, et il sera reduit a ne le de-
penser qu'a la sourdine." He consoles himself
with the words of Job, adding that one can sub-
mit to Providence without being devot (M. 35,
p. 481). He ends the episode with the pious
wish that the devil may get Michel (Letter to
Mme. Denis, Sept. 9, 1752) ; and that is where
all his symbolism ends: in the equivalence of
God and the devil.
The question as to the identity of Arbogad
is not yet answered, however. There are sev-
eral other applications which show how far-
reaching Voltaire's symbolism was. Voltaire
was met on every hand by the symbol of Arbo-
gad: Cette terre est a moi. In the first place,
he had to leave his little paradise of Cirey and
spend several years in Brussels or in its neig-
borhood on account of the lawsuit of Mme. du
Chatelet. A second cousin of M. du Chatelet,
named M. le marquis de Trichateau, had died
ARBOGAD 185
a widower, without children, at Cirey, and
Mme. du Chatelet claimed the inheritance. Her
claim was disputed by the House of Honsbrook,
so that Voltaire had to defend himself against
the symbol of Arbogad: Cette terre est a moi.
It was due to his efforts that, after long litiga-
tion, Mme. du Chatelet, although she had to
renounce the little principality and the title of
princess which would have gone with it, re-
ceived a large sum of money in settlement of
her claim. The successful heirs of the Marquis
de Trichateau were connected with Arbogad,
not merely by their cry: Cette terre est a moi,
but also, I think, by a pun on the name of the
Marquis. Voltaire poses, in the Pucelle, as M.
de Tritheme. He claims that the book De
tribus impostonbus, which Des Vignes, the
chancellor of the Emperor Frederick II, is sup-
posed to have written, was found by a M. de
Trawsmandorf (M. 17, p. 468). He is evi-
dently punning, in both cases, on the trinity
(tri-, tris, trois, trine, tritheisme). It is likely,
therefore, that Trichateau is thought of by Vol-
taire as the chateau of the trinity, t. e., of
Arbogad.
We still have to examine the portrait of
186 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
Arbogad in order to determine who he was. We
are aided in this analysis by another circum-
stance. Who was, in Voltaire's time, the par-
ticular King who raised the cry : " Cette terre
est a moi ? " With what particular King, who
raised that cry, did Voltaire come into relations ?
What particular King was intrepid in action,
pleasant in social relations, debauched at table,
gay in his debauch, a lingerer at rather famous
soupers, something of a wine-bibber, good ra-
conteur, animated in speech until overcome by
the fumes of wine, characterized by his frank-
ness, eager to enroll recruits, and especially
eager to have Voltaire in his entourage?
The answer is beyond the shadow of a doubt :
it was Frederick the Great, whom Voltaire per-
sisted in calling the God of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, a God who believed in no God except
himself.
The question: A qui est cette terre? was a
burning one at the time. It is not necessary
that I should describe the situation of Europe;
I need only refer the reader to Voltaire's Precis
du siecle de Louis XV. The various claimants
to slices of the Austrian succession prepared, in
spite of the Pragmatic sanction of Charles VI,
AEBOGAD 187
to which they had all agreed, to enforce their
claims by resort to arms. These claims had
already been pleaded in publications through-
out the whole Christian world (M. 15, p.
191 ff.). "Tous les princes, tous les particu-
liers, y prenaient interet. On s'attendait a une
guerre universelle; mais ce qui confondit la
politique humaine, c'est que Forage commenca
d'un cote ou personne n'avait tourne les yeux."
That was the invasion of Silesia by Frederick
the Great. Frederick's ancestors had laid claim
to four duchies in Silesia, which they had been
obliged to renounce because they were weak.
Frederick's father had governed his kingdom
in the one end of making it strong; he turned
everything into soldiers and into money. He
brought up the crown prince in the same single
aim, namely, that he might make good the claim
of Arbogad: Cette terre est a moi. Before his
invasion of Silesia Frederick and Voltaire had
met at the old chateau de Moiland, near Cleves,
in Ehenish Prussia, and very near the little
principality of Trichateau, names most appro-
priate for Voltaire's symbolism. At Voltaire's
arrival, or shortly thereafter, two thousand sol-
diers of Frederick departed at a gallop, with a
188 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIRE'S NOVELS
summons written by Voltaire, to enforce Fred-
erick's claim against the Bishop of Liege on the
Principality of Herstall (M. 23, p. 153, and
Memoir es pour servir a la vie de Voltaire).
Voltaire calls the two thousand soldiers of Fred-
erick "two thousand demonstrations of his
claim." This is the starting point of the episode
in Zadig: Comme il passait pres d'un chateau
assez fort, des Arabes armes en sortirent. The
fiction by which Zadig is represented as being
attacked by them is due to symbolism, since
Voltaire was always warring against the symbol
of Arbogad : Intolerance, a war in which Fred-
erick himself came to his aid. There is justi-
fication for this symbolism even in the summons
which Voltaire wrote against the Bishop o
Liege, since every ecclesiastical prince of Ger-
many was an Arbogad. How could a member
of the sect of Christ, whose vow bound him to
poverty and humility, arrive at princely dignity
except by the methods of Arbogad ? Frederick
refers to Voltaire's prowess in this little war
against the " prince-eveque," and against the
arch-robber in the Republic of Letters, Van
Duren, the publisher of the Anti-Machiavel (M.
35, p. 535) : Le Liegeois que vous dbattez, Van
ARBOGAD 189
Duren que vous retenez, etc. In still another
sense Frederick had aided Voltaire against
Arbogad, namely, in the litigation of Mme. du
Chatelet about the principality of Trichateau.
The real significance of Frederick's aid to Vol-
taire, as symbolized in this episode, is to be
sought, however, in the cause of Voltaire's first
visit to Berlin. Voltaire's fight against the
symbol of Arbogad culminated in his tragedy
Mahomet, which, he tells us, was inspired by
the persecutions of the epoch of the Voltairo-
manie. Mohammed was the greatest non-Jew-
ish, non-Christian brigand of history (cf. Vol-
taire's parallel between Mohammed and his suc-
cessors on the one hand and the Jews and their
God on the other : Essai sur les mceurs, Beuchot
15, p. 323). Voltaire's tragedy, symbolic of
the poet's defense of his person from the attacks
of religious fanaticism, was being played at
Lille, when the author received news of Fred-
erick's victory of Molwitz. He immediately
announced the news to the audience, in the ex-
pectation, he says, that Frederick's victory
would contribute to the success of his drama,
i. e. t that Arbogad would come to his rescue.
Further, when Voltaire was being persecuted in
190 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIRE'S NOVELS
Paris by the enemies of his tragedy, the parle-
mentaires, the convulsionnaires, the traducejc.
Desfontaines, the old poet Crebillon, Maurepas
and Mirepoix, the Archbishop of Sens and the
Archbishop of Strasburg, it was Frederick, the
Arbogad of Silesia, as well as the Pope, the
Arbogad of Rome, who came to his rescue. Vol-
taire went to the court of Frederick ostensibly
to escape from the persecutions of his enemies
in Paris, and he dedicated his tragedy to the
pope. Thus Arbogad, having witnessed the pro-
digious valor of Zadig, one man against a multi-
tude, pushed aside his own soldiers and rescued
the hero.
Frederick, half humorously, half seriously,
claimed that Voltaire belonged to him by di-
vine right (M. 36, p. 179; Nov. 18, 1742) and
that he could seize him wherever he found him.
If he had followed his own inclinations he
would long ago have printed a manifesto to this
effect. Thus the soldiers of Arbogad cry : Tout
ce que vous avez nous appartient, et votre per-
sonne appartient a noire maitre. Such refer-
ences run all through Frederick's correspond-
ence with Voltaire. He threatens to carry him
off. He sends him wine, which he drinks, and
ARBOGAD 191
by virtue of which, in Candide, he becomes an
unwilling recruit of the Bulgarian captain. It
is the recruiting mania of Frederick's father
for tall men, and of Frederick for great men.
Voltaire uses the expression de grands hommes
in an equivocal sense in his letter to Maupertuis
(M. 35, p. 468) : the six-foot physical giants
of the father have given way to the six-foot in-
tellectual giants of the son. Frederick did
everything in his power to make Voltaire's
return to France impossible (M. 36, p. 211) :
" Mon intention est de brouiller Voltaire si bien
en France qu'il ne lui reste de parti a prendre
que celui de venir chez moi." Voltaire was not
his dupe this time (M. 36, p. 253) : "Ne pou-
vant me gagner autrement, il croit m'acquerir
en me perdant en France ; mais je vous jure que
j'aimerais mieux vivre dans un village suisse
que de jouir a ce prix de la faveur dangereuse
d'un roi capable de mettre de la trahison dans
1'amitie meme : ce serait en ce cas un trop grand
malheur de lui plaire. Je ne veux point du
palais d'Alcine, ou 1'on est esclave parce qu'on
a ete aime."
Zadig has difficulty in getting clear and pre-
cise information out of Arbogad about Moabdar,
192 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
Astarte, and the trend of events in the Empire.
He informs him, however, that Moabdar is dead,
after having gone mad, that Babylon is a great
coupe-gorge, que I'empire est desole, and that
the time is most opportune for pillaging, quil
y a de beaux coups a faire, et que pour ma, part
j'en ai fait d' admirabl&sH So Frederick, not
more than a month and a half after his first
meeting with Voltaire, wrote (M. 35, p. 540;
Oct. 26, 1740) that the death of the Emperor
had disarranged all his pacific plans ; the affair
with the Bishop of Liege (which had been set-
tled peaceably by an agreement signed at Berlin,
Oct. 20) was nothing at all in comparison to
the death of the Emperor, which meant the
bouleversement de I'Europe. In the words of
Arbogad : " Jamais la saison de voler n'a ete
meilleure, depuis que Moabdar est tue, et que
tout est en confusion dans Babylon." At the
time of his semi-diplomatic mission to the court
of Frederick Voltaire had the same difficulty as
Zadig in getting precise information out of
Frederick. He finally learned, after many jest-
ing or evasive replies of the King had sorely
tried his patience, that Frederick's hesitation
about renewing the alliance with France was
ABBOGAD 193
duo to the fact that Louis XV had not declared
war on his uncle, King George of England.
Twenty days after this declaration was made
Frederick and Louis XV renewed their alliance
(March, 1744). Thus Voltaire was instrumen-
tal in uniting the two most pronounced Arbo-
gad kings of Europe.
The other features of Arbogad's portrait cor-
respond with those of Frederick. Arbogad's
frankness is especially emphasized. So Fred-
erick writes to Voltaire (M. 34, p. 164) that
the Germans are distinguished for their good-
sense, their candor, and the veracity of their
speech. The frankness of the King is often
brutal, and shows a cynical disbelief in any
virtue except self-interest. Voltaire fears that
Frederick despises too much mankind (M. 36,
p. 107), since he paints so well les nobles friponr
neries des politiques, let soins interesses des
courtisans. That was, according to the French
Ambassador at the court of Frederick, M. de
Valori, the particular fault in Frederick's char-
acter. Again, the debauchery of Arbogad d
souper, is a reminiscence of the famous soupers
of Frederick, in which unbridled license reigned,
especially in the brutal frankness of the King's
13
194 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIKE'S NOVELS
jests, whether spoken or acted. " Ce gouverne-
ment singulier, ces moeurs encore plus etranges,
ce contraste de stoi'cisme et d'epicureisme, de
severite dans la discipline militaire, et de mol-
lesse dans 1'interieur du palais, des pages avec
lesquels on s'amusait dans son cabinet, et des
soldats qu'on faisait passer trente-six fois par
les baguettes sous les fenetres du monarque qui
les regardait, des discours de morale, et une
licence effrenee, tout cela composait un tableau
bizarre que peu de personnes connaissaient alors,
et qui depuis a perce dans FEurope " (Memoires
pour servir a la vie de Voltaire, M. 1, p. 29).
There are some features of the episode of
Arbogad which do not apply to Frederick either
in his capacity as King or in his character as
the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but in
his capacity as a man of letters. I wish to show
how Voltaire connected him with the symbol
of the brigandage of literature.
Frederick had the mania of verse-making, the
rage of writing ; he was possessed with " ce desir
insurmontable, cette fureur . . . de produire
ses premiers ouvrages" (M. 34, p. 164). As
crown-prince he had begun the composition of
the Anti-Machiavel, with the publication of
ARBOGAD 195
which Voltaire was entrusted. Voltaire picked
out a publisher, whose name was later to serve
his symbolism, a certain Van Duren, of The
Hague, the "publisher of the most horrible
calumnies against the Regent, the most signal
rogue of Europe." When Frederick became
King, and especially when he realized what a
fine opportunity he had to put into practice the
principles of Machiavelli's prince, which he had
so eloquently refuted in his work, he wished to
withdraw it from publication. Voltaire's con-
duct in this negotiation is not above criticism.
There is not a doubt in the first place, that he
wished to have the Anti-Machiavel published as
a guarantee to the world of Frederick's attach-
ment to the principles of honor, justice, and
humanity (M. 35, p. 541) : " J'ai ete bien aise,"
he writes, "qu'un roi ait fait ainsi, entre mes
mains, serment a 1'univers d'etre bon et juste."
It was his purpose to make it impossible for
Frederick, after the publication of the Anti-
Machiavel, to act the part of Machiavelli's
prince. At the same time he had the positive
instructions of the King to withdraw the manu-
script. What did he do? He did everything
he could to excite the cupidity of Van Duren,
196 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIRE'S NOVELS
by vague references to the royal author, in spite
of the King's prohibition to mention him. He
succeeded so well that Van Duren refused, for
any consideration whatever, to desist from his
purpose of publishing the work. With that ob-
ject accomplished, Voltaire could do anything
he liked to justify himself in Frederick's eyes
as a good and faithful servant. He offered Van
Duren large sums, which he increased at three
different times; he secured possession of the
manuscript, folio by folio, on the plea of mak-
ing necessary corrections, and inserted what-
ever he liked, ostensibly to make the manuscript
useless to Van Duren. Then, after having con-
vinced the King that he had done all in his
power to prevent the publication and failed, he
secures the permission of Frederick to publish
his own version. That was just what Voltaire
aimed at, I feel sure, for he made so many
changes in the King's work that the author not
only disavowed the edition of Van Duren but
also that of Voltaire. But here Voltaire fell
into a snare from which he had great difficulty
in extricating himself. By the law of the land,
it seems (M. 35, p. 527), Van Duren had the
exclusive right to publish and sell the Anti-
ARBOGAD 197
Machiavel and for the sole reason that he had
been the first to announce his intention of pub-
lishing and selling it. That constitutes Vol-
taire's great grief against Van Duren, and it
connects him with the symbol of Arbogad : Cette
terre est a moi. Although Voltaire rages and
fumes he gives Van Duren credit for his busi-
ness perspicacity (M. 35, p. 523) : "II a raison
d'en user ainsi; ces deux editions et les sui-
vantes feraient sa fortune, et je suis sur qu'un
libraire qui aurait seul le droit de copie en
Europe gagnerait trente-mille ducats au moms."
That was Van Duren's plan, to possess himself
of both manuscripts (M. 35, p. 523) : "H vou-
lait imprimer et le manuscript que j'ai tente de
retirer de ses mains et celui meme que j'ai cor-
rige. II veut f riponner sous le manteau de la loi."
His legal right was that of Arbogad : Cette terre
est a moi, an association for which Frederick
was himself responsible. After giving Voltaire
permission to go ahead with his own edition and
to make whatever changes he wishes so that
it may appear as an entirely new and authentic
edition and cause that of Van Duren to fall, he
says that he will also have to disputer le ter-
rain a toutes sortes de Van Duren politiques.
198 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIKE'S NOVELS
Thus Frederick not only uses a figure equiva-
lent to Cette terre est a moi as a symbol for
himself and his brother kings, but he gives a
typical, a symbolic, meaning, to the name Van
Duren.
This episode of Van Duren receives signifi-
cance by the use the poet made of it in Candide,
where the connection of the symbol with Fred-
erick is certain. As it has an intimate bearing
on the symbolism of Arbogad, I will discuss it
here in some detail.
THE EPISODE OF VANDERDENDUR IN CANDIDE
As Cacambo and Candide approach the Dutch
city and trading station Surinam they come
upon a negro stretched on the ground. He is
dressed in rags, and is minus the right leg and
the left hand. The famous Dutch merchant
Vanderdendur has treated him thus; it is the
custom there; it is at this cost that the people
of Europe eat sugar. Candide sheds sincere
tears over the fate of the poor negro and con-
tinues on his way to Surinam. Here Vander-
dendur offers him transportation to Venice,
which he sells successively for 10,000, 20,000,
and 30,000 piasters. His cupidity has been
ARBOQAD 199
aroused by the readiness with which Candide
agrees to all his demands. He conspires to get
possession of all that Candide calls his own and
then to sail away. He succeeds in doing this.
Candide appeals to the courts. The judge
begins by fining him 10,000 piasters for con-
tempt, another 10,000 as costs, and then gra-
ciously promises to look into the matter when
Vanderdendur shall have returned. " Ce pro-
cede acheva de desesperer Candide; il avait a
la verite essuye des malheurs mille fois plus
douloureux; mais le sangfroid du juge, et celui
du patron dont il etait vole, alluma sa bile, et
le plongea dans une noire melancholic. La
mechancete des hommes se presentait a son
esprit dans toute sa laideur, il ne se nourrissait
que d'idees tristes."
It is impossible not to recognize here the Van
Duren of The Hague, to whom Voltaire had
offered successively 1000, 2000, 3000 florins, et
enfin jusqu'a mille ducats (Letter of Voltaire
to M. Cyrille Le Petit, Oct. 3, 1741 ; M. 35,
p. 516), and who plotted so cleverly to get
possession of both manuscripts of the Anti-
Machiavel. Voltaire had had a lawsuit with
him at The Hague, and he was sued by him
200 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
again at Frankfort at the time of the poet's
detention there in 1753. Van Duren presented
a bill for an old account, which Voltaire, with
his accustomed malice, ascribes to Frederick
(M. 1, p. 43 ; Memoires pour servir a la vie de
Voltaire} : " II pretendait que sa Majeste lui
redevait une vingtaine de ducats, et que j'en
etais responsable. II comptait 1'interet, et
1'interet de 1'interet. Le sieur Fichard, bourg-
mestre de Francfort, qui etait meme le bourg-
mestre regnant, comme cela se dit, trouva, en
qualite be bourgmestre, le compte tres-juste, et,
en qualite de regnant, il me fit debourser trente
ducats, en prit vingt-six pour lui, et en donna
quatre au fripon de libraire."
Voltaire's symbolism here is obscured by the
name Vanderdendur, and the poet probably in-
tended this to be so. It is not Van Duren, but
Frederick the Great that Voltaire has in mind ;
it is not Surinam, but (Francfort) sur-Main,
for which Surinam is an exact anagramme.
The following considerations will demonstrate
this, in so far as one can speak of a demonstra-
tion here.
In the first place, Voltaire is here confronted
with the old symbolism of Arbogad : Cette terre
ARBOGAD 201
est a moi. In the land of the Francs, in the city
of the Free, in a Free Imperial City, Francfort,
Frederick had no rights except those of Arbogad.
He had no jurisdiction there, except that of the
brigand. Voltaire complained, and never ceased
complaining, of this violation of international
rights. But to all his representations he received
the reply that Frederick had more authority in
Francfort than the Emperor. His appeals to
the Emperor were not even answered, it seems:
Arbogad was supreme.
In the second place, the poor mutilated negro,
whose left leg and right hand had been cut off
by Vanderdendur, is simply a variation on the
episode of Candide among the Bulgarians,
which, in turn, represents Voltaire among the
Prussians. Voltaire considered that his ex-
perience at the court of Frederick was symbol-
ized by the experience of the poor Franc-Com-
tois, Courtils, whose tragedy he relates in the
Memoires pour servir a la vie de Voltaire.
Courtils, like Voltaire, had been enticed to the
court of Berlin on the promise of being made
chamberlain to his majesty, Frederick Wil-
liam, but was put in a regiment of giants in-
stead. Courtils deserted, was caught, brought
202 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIRE'S NOVELS
back, made to run the gauntlet of a regiment
of soldiers armed with ram-rods, had his nose
and his ears cut off, after which he was thrown
in the military prison of Spandau, from which
Voltaire's eloquent verse secured his release.
The negro had lost an arm and a leg for assert-
ing his right to the noblest privilege of human-
ity: liberty; Courtils had lost his nose and his
ears for the same reason; Candide had been
made to passer trente-six fois par les baguettes
for the same reason; and Voltaire had been
plunged into the black flood of the Styx and
made to drink the bitterness of death for the
same cause. In reference to the grand drame
de sa vie, as Desnoiresterres calls the Francfort
episode, Voltaire writes (M. 9, p. 269), epito-
mizing the episode of Candide in Eldorado, fol-
lowed by Candide in Surinam:
" Au haut des cieux ils vous menent d'abord,
Puis on vous plonge au fond de 1'onde noire,
Et vous buvez Famertume et la mort."
Like the poor negro, like Courtils, like Candide,
Voltaire had in vain tried to escape from Arbo-
gad. Freytag and Schmidt, Frederick's ac-
credited brigands, deux ecumeurs ~barbares,
AEBOGAD 203
caught him at the frontiers of Mainz, brought
him back, searched and robbed him, treated him
with cruel indignities, first at the home of
Schmidt, then in the Bockshorn, aux comes de
bouc, fit symbol of the great god Pan, the flute-
player Frederick, the god of the trees, of the
garden, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He was
made to sign an affidavit that he had sinned
against his royal master in trying to escape, and
that Freytag and Schmidt were justified in tak-
ing the measures which they had taken ; further,
that he would never speak or write about this
matter, and that, if he failed to return all the
writings which might later be found with which
the King of Prussia had honored him, he would
submit to any measures which the King might
see fit to take, no matter where he might be
located at the time. One can not help hearing
the words of Arbogad's brigands: Tout ce que
vous avez nous appartient, et votre personne ap-
partient a noire maitre.
In the third place, Voltaire betrays his sym-
bolism by his reference, in the episode of Van-
derdendur, to Candide's baggage. Combien
voulez-vous, he says to the brigand, pour me
mener en droiture a Venise, moi, mes gens, mon
204 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIRE'S NOVELS
lagage, et les deux moutons que voild. Now,
Candide had no baggage on arriving at Surinam.
He had nothing but the two red sheep loaded
with the diamonds of the King of Eldorado.
Here again the reference is unmistakable. The
King of Prussia had written to his military
agent at Francfort, the Baron von Freytag, to
hold Voltaire a prisoner until his baggage should
have arrived, and in case it had already passed
Francfort, or had been forwarded by another
route, to detain him, under arrest, if necessary,
until it should have been brought back and thor-
oughly searched for the oeuvre de poeshie du
roi mon ma/iire, as Freytag is represented as
saying, or, as Voltaire ironically calls the dia-
monds of the King's pen, les joyaux de la
couronne brandebourgeoise. Freytag promised
to allow Voltaire to depart on the arrival of the
Leipzig baggage, in which the oeuvre de poeshie
was contained, but he plotted to get all of Vol-
taire's baggage, just as Vanderdendur plots to
get all of the baggage of Candide. Thus the
reference to the baggage of the hero, unjustified
in the episode taken by itself, receives its raison
d'etre from Voltaire's experience at Francfort.
In the last place, Voltaire betrays his sym-
ARBOGAD 206
holism by Candida's appeal to the law of the
land. The only satisfaction he obtained was the
gracious promise to look into the matter when
Vanderdendur should have returned. What
question can there be in the episode of the re-
turn of the brigand? None at all; he who
steals enough to buy up twenty kingdoms can
not be expected to run off with his plunder only
to return with it. The reference receives sig-
nificance only when applied to Frederick. Vol-
taire had appealed to the Imperial Council of
Francfort against the usurpation of Frederick,
but Freytag and Schmidt defeated his purpose
by representing that they were awaiting new
orders from the king. Frederick was no longer
at Potsdam ; he had gone to Konigsberg. Noth-
ing could be done until he returned. So Vol-
taire's imprisonment was prolonged until the
archrobber Arbogad could be consulted.
I referred above to Voltaire's epitome of his
experience at the court of Frederick, followed
by that of Francfort, as symbolized in the ex-
perience of Candide in Eldorado and Surinam.
" Au haut des cieux ils vous mfcnent d'abord,
Puis on vous plonge au fond de 1'onde noire,
Et vous buvez 1'amertume et la mort."
206 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
I may be excused for following up this line of
thought to explain the symbolism of Eldorado,
as it is connected with the question of inequality
in society which aroused Arbogad's envy and
started him on his career of pillage. It is
hardly a digression, therefore, since Voltaire's
symbolism is like a spider's web : everything is
connected with everything else. It is that fact
which makes the difficulty of presentation so
great. His symbolism is like the system of
Leibnitz and the ideas of Pascal, who claimed
that it was impossible to understand anything
in the universe because, everything being con-
nected with everything else, one can not grasp
the significance of any part without knowing
the whole ; and since a knowledge of the whole
universe is, on the face of it, impossible to mor-
tal man, therefore the knowledge of any part of
it is impossible.
THE EPISODE OF ELDOKADO
The " diamonds " of the Imagination, the
"jewels" of literature, is a common figure with
Voltaire. One of his earliest uses of it is the
following (M. 33, p. 210) : Plus on a fait pro-
vision des ricJiesses de I'antiquite, et plus on
ARBOGAD 207
est dans I'obligation de les transporter en son
pays. In reference to an Epitre of Formont
(M. 33, p. 477), he says: Devant les indigents
votre main accumule les vastes tresors de
Cresus. This theme appears most frequently
and persistently in Frederick's correspondence
with Voltaire. The very first letter of the
Crown Prince (M. 34, p. 101) contains it.
Frederick refers, not to Voltaire's ouvrages, but
to his voyages, in which he finds des tresors
d'esprit. At the time of this letter Voltaire's
muse was in Perou, i. e., Voltaire had gone on
a literary expedition to Perou, just as La Con-
damine had gone there on a scientific expedi-
tion (M. 10, p. 511) :
" Ma muse et son compas sont tous deux au Perou :
II suit, il examine, et je peins la nature.
Je m'occupe a chanter les pays qu'il mesure :
Qui de nous deux est le plus f ou ? "
It is by such a figure of speech that he can say
that he has traversed the whole world ; and more :
by his fictions, in which representatives of other
planets come to this little " heap of mud " called
the earth, and other fictions by which he is
caught up into the air and is carried from
208 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIBE'S NOVELS
planet to planet, he can say that he has tra-
versed the universe. It is likely that, by such
fictions, he desired to show his contemporaries
the real significance, and at the same time the
abuse that had been made of it, of the miracu-
lous episode of the Bible, by which Elias was
transfigured, or that of Mohammed, who trav-
eled, on his horse Borac, through the air. When
Voltaire reads MarmontePs book on the Incas
much later, he refers to it as the vessel which
transported him to Mexico and Perou with Mar-
montel.
Frederick refers to Voltaire's works : La Pu-
celle, Le Siecle de Louis XIV, Les Elements
de la philosophic de Newton (M. 34, p. 263)
as the Golden Fleece; his Traite de Metaphy-
sique is likened to the great diamond of Pitt, or
the Sanci, qui, dant leur petit volume, renfer-
ment des tresors immenses. He would believe
himself richer in possessing Voltaire's works
than in possessing all the wealth of the world,
which the same fortune gives and takes away
(M. 34, p. 104). He says (M. 35, p. 424):
"Mon cher Voltaire, les gallions de Bruxelles
m'ont apporte des tresors qui sont pour moi au-
dessus de tout prix. Je m'etonne de la prodigi-
ARBOGAD 209
euse fecondite de votre Perou, qui parait ine-
puisable."
These references might be multiplied, but
enough has been given to show the basis, or one
of the elements, of the episode of Eldorado. It
is first of all the Land of the Imagination, the
diamonds of which are des tresors d' esprit. One
of its applications is certainly to the court of
Frederick, and for the following reasons.
In the first place, Voltaire's very first letter
to the Prince says that Frederick can bring
back the age d'or, i. e., Eldorado, into his king-
dom (M. 34, p. 107).
In the second place, Voltaire calls Frederick
the God of Paradise, which is a way of saying
that he is the King of Eldorado, and by the
following associations: Cirey is the terrestrial
paradise (-of. Le Mondain), Cirey is also Eldo-
rado, i. e., the Perou of Voltaire's Imagination,
from the inexhaustible mines of which he ex-
tracts his tresors d 'esprit. But Frederick is the
King, and the only King, in the Kepublic of
Letters, i. e., in the Land of the Imagination;
he is the only roi qui se mele d'ecrire. He is
therefore the King of Eldorado. He is " Divus
Federicus" (M. 34, 426, p. 561), he is the
14
210 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
" God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob " (M. 34,
p. 317), i. e., he is the King, or the God of the
Garden, the King, or the God of Paradise ; the
King or the God of the New Jerusalem, in short,
of the Utopia ou tout est bien, "where all is
well."
In the third place, Frederick's father had
amassed des tonneaux tfor, Voltaire says (M.
10, p. 312 and Marmontel's Memoires, 1, pp.
265-266) ; he converted everything into money,
all of which Frederick inherited. When Vol-
taire came to Frederick's court he desired to
have his share of this wealth. He drove a hard
bargain with the King. He tried to get posses-
sion of Saxon securities at a low figure, in de-
fiance of the King's orders that there should be
no speculation in them. (Cf. Herrig's Archiv,
Vol. 16 (1906), pp. 429 ff.) Finally, he sent
all his money out of the kingdom and prepared to
leave the court for ever. He had, or he claimed
to have had, the greatest difficulty in getting per-
mission from the King to leave. Here, in the
episode of Eldorado, Voltaire gives free vent to
his terrible irony. Of course the King of Eldo-
rado would not think of detaining a traveler in
his kingdom ; Candide was at liberty to depart.
ABBOGAD 211
He may also take with him the King's tresors
d' esprit, le livre de poeshie du roi mon maitre.
He is raised to the top of the heavens, au haul
des deux, in a remarkable fashion; he departs
with the " Golden Fleece," with " the great dia-
mond of Pitt," with the " Sanci," with the " in-
exhaustible treasures of the mines of Perou,"
all securely encased in red-bound sheep-skin,
like the magnificent red-Morocco-bound volumes
of the Anti-Machiavel which Van Duren was to
send to the court of un ires-grand prince d'Al-
lemagne. When he arrives at Surinam, i. e.,
when Voltaire arrives at Francfort, the one has
to give up to Vanderdendur the two red sheep
with their immense treasures, the other has to
give up die von seiner Koniglichen Majestdt
hochst eigenen Hdnden viele Brief e und Skrip-
turen (cf. Voltaire in Frankfurt, 1753, Zsc. f.
fr. Sp. u. U., Vol. 27, by Hermann Haupt),
and, according to the Memoires pour servir a
la vie de Voltaire, large sums of money, the
equivalence of all that Voltaire had obtained
from Frederick during his stay in Prussia. Thus
the King of Eldorado, in the person of Vander-
dendur, proves himself to be the God and the
Robber of the Garden, i. e., Arbogad, who thun-
212 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIBE'S NOVELS
ders, from among the trees of the Garden about
Voltaire's "trunks," who had already kicked
Candide out of the wooded Westphalian Garden,
in the person of the old Baron Thunder-ten-
tronekh, who proves himself to be "le roi des
Bulgares" and "le roi des bougres," whose
symbols are the flute of the satyr and great war-
god Pan, i. e., the thunderer of the mountains,
and the " comes du bouc " of the God of Moses,
of Socrates, of Theodore de Beze, of Candide,
whom the Genevan prophet and successor of
Calvin loved, etc. One could make a series of
equations several pages long for the protean
forms of association under which Frederick ap-
pears in Voltaire's novels.
The assimilation of Frederick as Arbogad
with the Dutch publisher Van Duren, the robber
of the literary garden of Eden in which Vol-
taire's imagination roved and from which he
drew his tresors d' esprit leads us here to an in-
vestigation of the literary brigandage of which
Voltaire so often complained. How clearly the
secret of Voltaire's symbolism comes out in the
following couplet from his Discours sur I'Envie
(M. 9, p. 395) :
ARBOGAD 213
" vous qui de 1'honneur entrez dans la earriftre,
Cette route a vous seul appartient-elle entire? "
In other words, in the words of Arbogad, who
gave you the right to say : Cette terre est a moif
Is that land yours alone ? Who constituted you
the despot of the Garden of the Imagination?
By what right, do you justify your claim to be
lord of all that you survey? What right has
a publisher to seize Voltaire's work and deface
it, and sell it to the world without rendering
an account to the author? What right has a
critic, like Desfontaines, to keep open booth,
where he sells praise and blame to the highest
bidder? What right has Rousseau to decry
Zaire as a sermon against the grace efficace of
the Jansenists? What right has Lefranc de
Pompignan to pillage Metastasio, as Rousseau
pillaged Marot and Rabelais? What right, if
not the usurpation and tyranny of Arbogad,
with his cry: Cette terre est a moif
Like all the scribblers of Europe, Frederick
was not a diamond of literature "by the grace
of God." He hoped to become one, however,
as did his conferes, with practice and with Vol-
taire, i. e., with CunSgonde, Voltaire's muse, as
blanchisseuse de son linge sale. What does the
214 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIBE'S NOVELS
" grain of sand in the Republic of Letters " do ?
Does he desist from writing? Is he content to
remain, by convention, what he is by nature, an
unknown atom in the immensity of the desert
or of the ocean ? Voltaire tells us what he does
in another apologue, quite similar to the one
which started Arbogad on his career of plunder
(M. 17, p. 570). In view of the enormous
number of books in the world, he says, one
would think that the person tempted to write
would be discouraged and desist; but, on the
contrary, he says to himself : " Those books are
not read, and mine may be." He compares
himself to the drop of water that complained
at the thought of being lost in the immensity of
the ocean. A spirit took pity on it and had it
swallowed by an oyster. In a few years it
became a beautiful pearl and graced the throne
of the Great Mogul. So the wretched scribbler
works away in his garret in the hope of becom-
ing a pearl. Such people never think, they
compile, they pillage the living and the dead,
they rob the diamonds and the possessors of the
diamonds, they besmirch the reputation of the
great and noble and travesty virtue into vice.
Voltaire makes, in his Discours sur I'Envie,
ABBOGAD 215
an appeal to the gens de lettres to live without
dissensions. They would then be like the noble
trees of the mount of Parnassus, the lofty pines
and the noble oaks, whose peaks touch the heav-
ens, whose roots descend into the realm of the
dead, whose branches cover the earth, and in
whose shadow the vile serpents, the ravenous
wolves, the envious robbers and brigands, give
battle to each other and moisten their roots with
their impure blood. The composition of this
discourse points to the application of the rob-
bers of the literary garden to the calumnies of
Desfontaines and Rousseau. Voltaire images
Rousseau under the picture of the hungry and
tyrannical wolf of the forest, and Desfontaines
under the serpent. It is the epoch of the Vol-
tairomanie. Voltaire tells us that the persecu-
tions to which he was subjected at this time in-
spired him to write Mahomet. It is, at first,
difficult to see the connection between the Vol-
tairomanie and Mahomet. It is plain from the
motto and the episode of Arbogad. C'est la
manic de voter la terre, c'est-d-dire, la Vot-
tairomanie. It is the period of the gobbling-
up of lands and the gobbling-up of Voltaire.
The mania manifested itself in Frederick lit-
216 SYMBOLISM OP VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
erally and equivocally; he seized Silesia, and
lie tried to seize Voltaire. The mania mani-
fested itself in the religious persecutions to
which Voltaire was subjected in the name of
the God of the Garden for the Lettres philo-
sophiques, for the Mond&in, for the Elements de
la philosophic de Newton. Above all, the mania
manifested itself in the Voltairomanie of Des-
fontaines, when Voltaire seemed to be deserted
by all his friends, even those who owed him the
greatest obligations.
The success of Alzire, against the hope of
Lefranc de Pompignan who had stolen the sub-
ject and who had expected to present his trag-
edy at the Thedtre-Frangais before Voltaire,
aroused the enemies of the poet as never before.
As Condorcet says, Cirey hid his person, but
not his glory; he excited so much envy that he
might be considered a prince. The culmination
of this enmity and envy was the Voltairomanie
of Desfontaines. "After that," he is repre-
sented as saying, " Voltaire has nothing left to
do except to go hang himself." To add to the
despair of the poet, which was never more acute
than at this time, unless it be at the time of his
detention at Francfort, his best friends turned
ABBOGAD 217
against him, especially Thieriot, who, like Arbo-
gad, wished to drink his Champagne in peace
(M. 35, p. 105, 147, 149) and amuse himself
in the house of the fermier-generdl, La Pope-
liniere, himself an Arbogad. Thieriot, the rob-
ber of the subscriptions of the Henriade, seems
to have associated himself with Desfontaines,
who began the brigandage of which Voltaire
complains by his fraudulent edition of the
Henriade (M. 25, p. 584). Thus they come
under the symbolism as a composite character.
Even Voltaire's publishers turned against him.
Mme. du Chatelet writes (M. 35, p. 265) that
she has been obliged to keep from him I'hor-
reur de ses libraires. Anonymous publications,
forged by Rousseau and consummated by Des-
fontaines, accusing him of atheism, found their
way to the chief men in power at court, and
Voltaire lived in fear of a lettre de cachet.
False devots joined them and covered their fury
of injuring him with the mantle of religion.
Rumors that copies of the Pucelle were being
circulated caused him mortal fear, as is so
graphically described by Mme. de Grafigny.
The mania of the French, probably justified by
the practice of 18th century French authors,
18 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
of seeing allusions to themselves in his char-
acters is also the subject of his complaints. No
career of honor was open to a man of letters in
France, as in England. Addison would have
been persecuted in France, because somebody
would have recognized some traits of the por-
trait d'un portier d'un homme en place in Cato.
No sooner had Voltaire arrived in Paris, after
an absence of about three years, when some one
told Fleury that he had composed a life of the
old Nestor-Cardinal. He was in the position
of Damocles ; a trifle could prove his ruin.
Voltaire had to fight against the brigandage
of literature not only with his pen; or the at-
tacks, at all events, were not limited to that in-
strument. At least twice he had suffered assault
and battery. The earliest case was that of the
French officer and spy of the Regent, M. Solenne
de Beauregard. The brigand Saint-Hyacinthe,
whom Voltaire had known in Paris at the time
of (Edipe, and whom he had met and expelled
from his house as a common thief in London
(i. e., if we are to believe his account, which,
like so many of his accusations, is only true by
symbolism), had written up this episode of
Beauregard under the title of La Deification du
AEBOGAD 219
docteur Aristarchus Masso, and had appended
it to his new edition of Le chef-d'ceuvre d'un
inconnu, ou Mathanasius in 1732 (M. 22, p.
257 f.). In other words, it was, for Voltaire,
the deification of the robber in the Republic of
Letters, i. e., Arbogad. It seems that this satire
on the poet was not known to him until Desfon-
taines repeated it in the Voltairomanie (M. 23,
p. 40, note). In that case, the letter of Voltaire
which first makes mention of it (M. 33, p. 484)
is certainly misdated and misplaced (Febru-
ary 26, 1735 should be February 26, 1739).
When Voltaire learned of it he sought a retrac-
tion from Saint-Hyacinthe. He even threat-
ened to take Saint-Hyacinthe's life if he did not
signify that he did not have Voltaire in mind
in the composition of his Deification. He tries
to get a signed statement from Mile. Quinault
that he had not been the victim of Beauregard,
and that the story of Saint-Hyacinthe and its
application to Voltaire was a calumny (M. 35,
p. 155 f., and elsewhere). She showed him
that there might be additional ridicule heaped
upon him by such a declaration signed by mem-
bers of the Comedie-Frangaise. Finally Vol-
taire succeeded in getting from his enemy a
220 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIKE'S NOVELS
declaration which is so good a characterization
of Voltaire's own method of composition that I
insert it here. It runs as follows (M. 35,
p. 267) :
"La Deification dont on parle n'est qu'un
ouvrage d'imagination, un tissu de fictions qu'on
a lie" ensemble pour en f aire un re"cit suivi. On
y a eu en vue de marquer en general les def auts
ou tombent les savants de divers genres et de
diverses nations. On y a done etc" obliger d'i-
maginer des choses particulie'res, qui, quoique
rapportees comme des choses particulieres, ne
doivent etre regardees que comme des genera-
lite"s applicables a tous les savants qui peuvent
tomber dans ces defauts. On ne peut faire une
allegorie ni un caractere que 1'imagination d'un
lecteur ne puisse appliquer a quelqu'un que
1'auteur meme n'aura jamais vu. Ainsi ce qui
n'aura, dans un ouvrage de fiction, qu'un objet
general, en devient un particulier par la malig-
nite d'une fausse interpretation. Si cela est
permis, monsieur, il ne faut plus songer a ecrire,
a moins que le public, plus reserve", ne juge de
1'intention d'un auteur conformement au but
general de 1'ouvrage, et qu'il ne fasse retomber
sur 1'interprete la malignite de 1'interpretation."
AEBOGAD 221
That is as far as Saint-Hyacinthe would ever
go, and, as a matter of fact, he could not go fur-
ther without dishonoring himself; for it is un-
doubted that he did have Voltaire in mind. It
seems that Voltaire never made use of this ex-
position of the methods of the realistic-symbolic
author of the eighteenth century. It would not
have convinced anybody, if he had. It would
never have occurred to any one, even to the
most malin faiseur ^interpretations to apply
the Deification to a person whom the author
had never known, as he suggests in his apology.
In the literary wars of the eighteenth century
one did not fire into the blue air; one aimed at
the heart of one's enemy.
It is very likely that Voltaire had Beaure-
gard in mind in the composition of the episode
of Arbogad, and for the following reasons, (1)
because Arbogad is an exact anagramme of
Beauregard, with the equivalence of the diph-
thong and the simple vowel "o" admitted, (2)
because Beauregard was a spy and officer in the
service of the Regent, the "God-Father," the
Joachim Prepucier, father and husband of the
Pucelle, and (3), because Voltaire has described
in Zadig the other beating to which he was sub-
222 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIKE'S NOVELS
jected, that of Rohan-Chabot, under similar
symbolism, that of Orcan.
Voltaire rounds out his symbolism in many
ways and makes connections which it is not
easy to follow. He realized, as did few authors
in the century of Rousseau, that there was no
possibility of equality among men. He praises
the sentiment of Milton (M. 36, p. 107):
"Amongst equals no society." That, to him,
was an obvious proof that the paradise of our
first parents was foolish. What Voltaire proved,
in one of his Discours en vers sur I'homme, was
the equality of conditions. There is no reason
why the grain of sand in the desert should not
be just as good and just as happy as the dia-
mond in the crown of the Great Mogul. There
must be grains of sand and drops of water. If
the grains of sand and the drops of water are
not just as happy and just as good as the dia-
monds and the pearls, it is because of envy.
With their eyes green with envy they raise their
cry for equality of temporal possessions. Now
both the Rousseau had incurred Voltaire's en-
mity by their meditations on the origin of ine-
quality among men (cf. Voltaire's reference to
the elder Rousseau's galimatias M. 24, p. 223:
ARBOGAD 223
Paralelle d' Horace, de Boileau, de Pope). They
both paint the state of nature as a paradise
where all is well, because all were equal. Com-
pare the following quotations from Jean-Bap-
tiste Rousseau with the famous paradoxes of
Jean- Jacques (CEuvres de Jean Baptiste Rous-
seau, Vol. 1, p. 468 ff.) :
w lls vivaient tous egalement heureux;
Et la nature etait riche pour euz.
Toute la terre etait leur heritage.
L'egalite faisait tout leur partage.
Chacun etait et son juge et son roi."
Then discord was produced by intellectual
curiosity, by scientific aspirations. People be-
gan to ask themselves these questions : Comment
s'est fait tout ce que nous voyons? Pourquoi
ce ciel, ces astres, ces rayons? Then Rousseau
apostrophizes Reason:
" Folle raison ! lumiere deplorable
Qui n'insinue a 1'horame miserable
Que le mepris d'une simplicite
Si necessaire a sa f elicite ! "
As a result of this intellectual curiosity ques-
tions, doubts, discussions, disputes, factions
arose, and with them inequality.
224 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIBE'S NOVELS
" Ainsi chacun ne sougeant plus qu'a soi,
On cut besoin pour preVenir les guerres
De recourir au partage des terres;
Et d'un seul peuple, on vit dans 1'univers,
Naitre en un jour mille peuples divers."
With the division of the surface of the earth
and the formation of different peoples all the
bonds of friendship were broken by self-interest ;
avarice, theft, treason, perjury, were visible on
all sides. To better establish her empire Moro-
sophie (i. e., Folly) invented the art of writ-
ing, and a thousand other arts more detestable
still, from which was born the most detestable
of all our enemies, Luxury, which makes the
poor man feel his poverty :
" Le luxe, ami de 1'oisive mollesse,
Qui parmi nous signalant sa souplesse,
Introduisit par cent divers canaux
La pauvrete", le plus dur de nos maux."
That was just the opposite of Voltaire's phil-
osophy, and, indeed, the Mondain was composed
purely and simply as a sermon against just
such ideas. Likewise, the old Rousseau was
constantly mingling Providence with his
wretched little affairs, proving, to his own
satisfaction, that this world, as in the system
ARBOGAD 225
of Leibnitz and the religion of the Jansenists,
was under the immediate direction of God, and
that the prosperity of the wicked was only the
effect of God's wrath, which would be visited
upon their heads in ways which we know not
(op. cit., p. 445) :
" Et qu'en un mot se desordre apparent
Dont ici has le cahos vous surprend,
Est un nuage, un voile necessaire
Qui confondant votre orgueil temeraire,
Cache a vos yeux de tenebres converts
L'ordre regie" qui regit 1'univers."
His ordre regie, however, was the " individual-
istic" Providence of the Jansenists.
The same thoughts are at the bottom of Jean
Jacques Rousseau's diatribes against inequality
and in favor of Providence.
Curiosity, the origin of the arts and sciences,
the necessity of leisure, luxury, all these things
hang together in the relation of cause and effect.
The poor man is poor just because the rich man
is rich, and the rich man enjoys his wealth only
in proportion to the misery of the poor man!
"H faut des jus dans nos cuisines, voila pour-
quoi tant de malades manquent de bouillon; il
faut des liqueurs sur nos tables ; voila pourquoi
15
226 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE 'S NOVELS
le paysan ne boit que de 1'eau; il faut de la
poudre a nos perruques ; voila pourquoi tant de
pauvres n'ont point de pain." To this M.
Bordes well replies: "S'il n'y avait point de
luxe, il n'y aurait que des pauvres." The whole
argument of his prize discourse is that God
placed us in a state of ignorance, covering
from our eyes all the operations of nature with
a heavy veil as if to warn us not to seek to
penetrate her secrets; there are no kinds of
knowledge which are not hidden from us; the
sciences are like dangerous weapons which a
mother snatches from her children and hides
from them.
Voltaire had connected the old Rousseau
with his symbolism of Arbogad; he had much
more reason to connect the young Rousseau
with similar creations in Candide. The old
Rousseau, writing against Zaire and weeping
from envy, himself the author of comedies
sifflees, and the young Rousseau, thundering
against the comedy from his old donjon open to
the four winds of heaven, likewise~tne author
of comedies sifflees, were too much alike not to
be associated by Voltaire, even if they were not
already associated by virtue of their name.
ARBOGAD 227
Pangloss, in Oandide, is a composite portrait
of the two Rousseau, and the younger Rousseau
appears in several other characters and episodes
of the novel, namely, wherever there is a symbol
of spoken nonsense, of carnosity, of intolerance,
of envy, of wine-bibbing, of inequality in the
person of a domestic, and as part and parcel of
Thunder-ten-tronckh and the King of Eldorado.
It would seem as if Jean Jacques had read
and mistaken the import of the episode of Arbo-
gad. Voltaire lashed in this character the
symbol of brigandage and of tyranny. He had
come after the lots had been cast, had dispos-
sessed the rightful owners, had robbed and slain
in the name of the Deity in him incorporate.
It would seem that Jean Jacques saw in it
nothing but the source of all our ills, as the
bearer of the idea of ownership, without refer-
ence to the manner in which ownership was
attained. He begins the second part of his
Discours sur I'origine et les fondements de
I'inegalite parmi les homines with the symbol
of Arbogad : " The man who first staked out a
portion of the earth and said: This land is
mine, and found people to believe him, is the
source of all our woes. He would have been
228 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
the greatest benefactor of the race who should
have pulled up his stakes and said to him:
Les fruits sont a tons, la terre n'est a personne/'
Voltaire annotated Rousseau's fine paradoxes
with marginal remarks. This is his note to the
above (M. 32, p. 470) : " Quoi ! celui qui a
plante, seme, et enclos, n'a pas le droit aux
fruits de sa peine ? Quoi ! un homme in juste
et voleur aurait ete le bienfaiteur du genre
humain ! Voila la philosophic d'un gueux ! "
In other words, voild la philosophic d* Arbogad.
And when this gueux, this "Arbogad," began
to put his philosophy into practice; when he
began to declaim against Voltaire's pet hobby,
the theatre; when, in conjunction with other
Arbogad, he began to cause persecution against
Voltaire and the Encyclopedists, so that the
author of Zadig felt obliged to give up his little
estate within the territory of Geneva, and mi-
grate to Ferney, where Arbogad could not say :
Cette terre est a moi et tout ce que vous avez
m'appartient de droit divin; then, indeed, it
was time for the author of the episode of Arbo-
gad to get his symbols out of the cedar chest
and set them into motion on his miniature
theatre de la vie humaine. That is just what
ARBOOAD 229
he did in Candide, where Arbogad appears pri-
marily in Thunder-ten-tronckh ; for the brigand
has raised again his well known cry : Cette terre
esi a moi. Frederick was thundering at the
gates of Leipzig, the birth-place of Leibnitz;
Rousseau was thundering at the gates of Les
Delices, which, like the home of Leibnitz, was
the pays ou tout est bien. The Socinians of
Geneva and the Jesuits and the Jansenists had
united to thunder at the gates of the Encyclo-
pedia; in short, from the straits of Gibraltar
to the straits of Magellan and the farthest In-
dies the Lord of Hosts was hurling his thunder-
bolts, i. e., Arbogad was supreme.
CHAPTER VIII
JESEAD
THE episode of the Angel and the Hermit has
always been considered as the bearer of the phil-
osophic thesis of the novel Zadig. It is inj.-
portant, therefore, that we consider it in some
detail.
This is the episode.
In the tournament to decide who shall be
King of Babylon and husband of Astarte Zadig
has triumphed over all contestants. While he
is resting from the fatigues of the day, Itobad,
the most vain and the most ridiculous of all the
combatants, steals the white armor given to
Zadig by the Queen, and puts his own green
armor in its place. He then presents himself
to the chief Magian, declaring that an homme
comme lui is the victor, and is proclaimed King
of Babylon while Zadig is still sleeping. When
Zadig awakes he is obliged to don the green
armor of Itobad, because he has nothing else to
put on. He sallies forth in it and is ill-treated
230
JESRAD 231
by the rabble, who mistake him for Itobad.
Zadig finally breaks through the ranks of his
persecutors and walks, in great perturbation,
along the banks of the Euphrates, persuaded
that his evil star destines him to irremediable
misfortune.
" That's what comes of waking up too late,"
he says to himself. "If I had slept less I
should now be King of Babylon and husband
of Astarte." He murmurs against Providence.
He feels that all his wisdom, his morals, his
courage, avail him nothing; on the contrary,
they only serve to his misfortune.
In this mood he exchanges his green armor
for a long robe and a cowl, and then continues
his walk along the Euphrates. He soon meets
a venerable hermit, who is reading in the book
of fate. Zadig is versed in many languages,
but he finds himself unable to read a word in
this book. The hermit asks Zadig for permis-
sion to accompany him; he has sometimes, he
says, been a source of consolation to the unfor-
tunate. Zadig feels respect for the venerable
air of the hermit, for his beard, and for his
book, and is glad to have his company. The
hermit discourses on destiny, justice, morality,
232 SYMBOLISM OP VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
the sovereign good, human frailty, vice, virtue,
and with such lively eloquence that Zadig is
more and more attracted to him, and finally, at
the request of the hermit, promises not to quit
him for three days, no matter what may happen.
The two travelers are received the first night
in the castle of a great lord, who exercises lavish
hospitality for the sake of vanity and ostenta-
tion. The hermit steals from him a large basin
of gold, adorned with emeralds and rubies.
Zadig is surprised, but says nothing. They
next come to the house of a rich miser, who has
some bad food given to them in a stable, where
a servant watches them that they may not steal
anything. To this servant the hermit gives
two gold pieces which he had received from his
host of the night before, and asks to be brought
into the presence of his master. The hermit
thanks profusely the rich miser for his hospi-
tality and presents to him the precious basin
which he had stolen. The miser nearly faints.
The hermit and Zadig take advantage of his
confusion and depart. Zadig can no longer
contain his surprise; he asks the meaning of
such strange conduct. His companion assures
him that their first host, whose hospitality was
JESBAD 233
due to his vanity, will be wiser in the future,
while the miser will be hospitable to strangers
from this time on. Zadig could not determine
whether he had to do with a madman or with
the wisest of men, and he continued to follow
him.
They arrive at the house of a philosopher who
was neither prodigal nor avaricious, and who
cultivated wisdom and virtue without ever feel-
ing bored by them. His treatment of the
strangers is simple, courteous, hospitable. The
conversation turns on Providence and the pas-
sions of men. " How baneful the passions are,"
exclaims Zadig. The hermit assures him that
they are the winds which swell the sails of the
vessel; they submerge it sometimes, it is true,
but it could not sail without them. The bile
makes one choleric and ill, but without it we
could not live. Everything is necessary here
below, and everything is dangerous. He con-
tends that men are wrong to " juger d'un tout,
dont ils n'aperc.oivent que la plus petite partie."
The next morning, as a mark of esteem for his
host, the hermit sets fire to his house and flees,
drawing Zadig after him. Dieu merd, dit-il,
voild la maison de mon cher hote detruite de
234 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
fond en comble! L'heureux homme! At these
words Zadig is tempted to burst out laughing,
to reproach the reverend pere, to beat him, and
to run away, all at the same time; but he does
none of these things, he continues to follow him
to their last stopping place.
They are taken in by a charitable and virtu-
ous widow, who has a nephew of fourteen, her
only hope and consolation. The next morning
she orders the youth, in the kindness of her
heart, to accompany her guests to a bridge,
which, recently broken, might prove dangerous
passage to them. The hermit, as a mark of
gratitude to his hostess, catches her nephew by
the hair and throws him into the river, where
he drowns miserably. Zadig breaks out in
horror at this treacherous act ; he calls his com-
panion a monster and the most execrable of men.
The hermit interrupts him and deigns to ex-
plain. Under the ruins of the house to which
Providence has set fire the philosopher will find
an immense treasure. The youth whose neck
Providence has wrung, would, had he lived,
have assassinated his good aunt within a year,
and Zadig within two. Qui te I'd dit, barbare ?
cries Zadig ; et quand tu aurais lu cet evenement
JESRAD 235
dans ton livre des destinees, t'est-il permis de
noyer un enfant qui ne t'a point fait de mal?
While Zadig is still speaking he perceives that
the hermit is being metamorphosed: his beard
has disappeared, his features have grown youth-
ful, four fair wings cover a majestic body re-
splendent with light. Zadig prostrates himself,
crying: envoy e du del! 6 ange divin! tu es
done descendu de I'empyree pour apprendre a
un faible mortel a se soumettre aux ordres
eternels?
Les hommes, said the angel Jesrad, jugent de
tout sans rien connaitre: tu etais celui de tons
les hommes qui meritais le plus d'etre eclaire.
Zadig asks permission to question the angel;
he lacked confidence, he said, in his own judg-
ment, and wished to have his doubts cleared up.
"Would it not have been better," he asks,
"to have corrected that youth, and made him
virtuous, than to drown him?"
"If he had become virtuous," replied the
angel, "and had lived it would have been his
destiny to have been assassinated himself, with
the woman whom he would have married, and
the child that was to be born of their union."
Zadig asks: "But why is it necessary that
236 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIKE'S NOVELS
there should be crimes and misfortune^, and
that good people should be their victims ? "
The angel replied that the wicked were always
unhappy. " They serve to try the small num-
ber of the just scattered about the earth. Be-
sides," he added, "there is no evil from which
good does not result."
" But if there were only good, and no evil ? "
asks Zadig.
" Then," replied the angel, " this earth would
be a different earth, the concatenation of events
would be a different order of wisdom ; and that
order, which would be perfect, could only be in
the eternal abode of the supreme being, whom
evil can not approach. He has created millions
of worlds, of which no one can resemble the
other. This immense variety is an attribute
of his immense power. There are no two leaves
of a tree on the earth, nor two globes in the
infinite space of the heavens, which are alike,
and all that you see on the little atom where you
were born, had to be, in the time and place
fixed for it, according to the immutable laws
of him who embraces everything. Men think
that that child, who has just been drowned, fell
into the water by chance, but there is no chance :
JE8EAD 237
everything is ' trial, or punishment, or reward,
or foresight.' Remember the fisherman whom
you thought the most unfortunate of all men.
Orosmade sent you to change his destiny.
Feeble mortal! cease to dispute against what
you must adore."
"But . . . ," said Zadig; but as he said
" but," the angel Jesrad took his flight towards
the tenth sphere. Zadig, on his knees, adored
Providence, and submitted. The angel cried to
him from the heights of the air to take his way
back to Babylon.
Zadig returned to Babylon, still in cowl and
gown, or, as he calls it, in bonnet de nuit et robe
de chambre, and met with a most loving recep-
tion ; the people feasted their eyes on him. He
easily divined the enigmas of time and life,
and then, still in gown and cowl, easily over-
came Itobad, thus making himself King of
Babylon and husband of Astarte. Under the
reign of Zadig and Astarte the empire enjoyed
peace, glory, and abundance, because it was
governed by Justice and Love. People blessed
Zadig, Zadig blessed heaven, and adored Provi-
dence.
The question of the interpretation of this
238 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIRE'S NOVELS
episode has already been, in a large measure,
disposed of, but the arguments that have been
presented may be summed up here, and, wher-
ever necessary, elaborated. The chief point to
be kept in mind is that, in view of all that has
gone before, this episode must be considered in
reference to Voltaire's life. The immediate
point of contact between this episode and Vol-
taire's life is his efforts to get into the French
Academy : he wanted to become one of the elus,
but "many are called and few chosen." He
had every quality, with the sole exception of
religion. He proceeded to remedy this defect.
He wrote to the Archbishop of Sens, on whom
he so often emptied the vials of his ridicule, to
give public testimony to his submission to the
dogmas of the ' Christian religion (M. 36, p.
191 ff.), but he was not explicit enough. He
wrote to Mirepoix in the same vein. Frederick
expressed his astonishment at this turn of af-
fairs (M. 36, p. 208) :
"Depuis quand, dites-moi, Voltaire,
Etes-vous de"genere?
Chez un philosophe epure,
Quoi ! la grace efficace opere !
Par Mirepoix endoctrine,
JESRAD 239
Et tout asperge" d'eau benite,
Abattu d'un jeune obstine",
Allez-vous devenir ermitef
D'un ton saintement nasillard,
Et marraottant quelque priere,
En baillant lisant le breviaire,
On vous enrole a Saint-Medard,
Avec indulgence pleniere."
Voltaire writes to Cideville from The Hague,
indicating how he intended to become one of
the elus (M. 36, p. 215) :
" Je veux, en partant de Berlin,
Demander justice au saint-pere;
J'irai baiser son pied divin
Et chez vous je viendrai soudain
Avec indulgence ple'niere.
Je veux avoir enfin Rome pour mon amie,
Et, malgre quelques vers hardis,
Je veux etre un 61u dans le__gainl paradis,
Si je suis reprouve" dans votre Academie."
Frederick calls this hypocrisy of Voltaire the
"bending of the knee of the minister of truth
to the idol of superstition" (M. 36, p. 208).
That Voltaire realized the import of what he
was doing and submitted to it only as one sub-
mits to the inevitable is obvious from his letters
to the Comte d'Argenson and to Thieriot. To
240 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIBE'S NOVELS
the former he writes (M. 36, p. 221) : II (i. e.,
Mirepoix) prend assurement un bien mauvais
parti, et il fait plus de mal qu'il ne pense. II
devrait savoir que c'est un metier bien triste de
faire des hypocrites. To the latter he expresses
himself similarly (M. 36, p. 297) : II faudrait
que la vertu ne fut point oblige de rendre hom-
mage au fanatisme et a I'hypocrisie.
Before continuing with the episode of Jesrad,
it will be necessary to explain the episode of the
Combats, in which the opposition to Voltaire's
candidacy to the French Academy is symbolized
in the character of Itobad. It is only because
Itobad stole the honor due to their merit that
Voltaire and Zadig are obliged to have recourse
to the divine.
THE EPISODE OF ITOBAD
In his Memoire against the libels to which he
had been subjected in 1739, and which were
renewed by the poet Eoi in 1744, Voltaire seems
to point to Desfontaines and Jean Jacques Le-
franc de Pompignan, with the possible inclusion
of the old poet Crebillon. He protests that he
is not a satirist (M. 32, p. 460 f.), and that he
never refused praise and honor where they were
JESRAD 241
due. Lefranc need only publish his tragedy,
on the same theme as Voltaire's Alzire, to see
how ready Voltaire will be to show appreciation
of his talents. Crebillon need only produce his
Catilina to meet with the same generous treat-
ment. At the end of the Memoire he seizes the
pen from the hand of the copyist to inform the
world in his own hand what he intends to do
in the face of persecution : he will take a lesson
from the characters that he has created in
Alzire; he will arm himself with that probity
which he has depicted in all his works, comme
ces anciens qui se couvraient des armes fabri-
quees par leurs mains. That is, since he is
speaking of the tragedy which he had dedi-
cated to Mme. du Chatelet, his muse, he
will arm himself with the white armor given
to him by Astarte, Queen of Babylon. In
Zadig that armor was stolen from him by
Itobad; but who, in Voltaire's life is repre-
sented by Itobad? Certainly the man or men
who forced him to play the role of the hypo-
crite, and the man or men who besmirched his
honor. They were Maurepas and Mirepoix, the
Archbishop of Sens and the Archbishop of
Strasburg; they were Lefranc de Pompignan
16
242 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
who stole the subject of Alzire, and of whose
persecutions Voltaire complains frequently in
this period ; Crebillon, who opposed his tragedy
Mahomet, and especially Desfontaines who de-
nounced this tragedy, who accused Voltaire of
atheism, who furnished to Voltaire's enemies in
1744 the satires which the poet Eoi made use of
to defeat Voltaire's candidacy to the French
Academy, and of whom Voltaire wrote (M. 8,
p. 423) :
" Mais 1'ingrat devore d'envie,
Trompette de la calomnie,
Qui cherche a fletrir mon honneur,
Voila le ravisseur coupable,
Voila 'e larcin detestable."
In other words: Voila le larcin d'ltobad, le
ravisseur des armes blanches de Zadig.
]STow there are two circumstances that offer
unmistakable proof of the application of Itobad
to such men as those already mentioned: his
fatuity, his repetition of the phrase un Tiomme
comme moi, and his title of monseigneur.
These two circumstances show that Itobad is a
composite character, made up of the fatuous
man of letters and the dignitary of the church.
The following references will establish that.
JESRAD 243
The very first instance of the expression un
homme comme moi to be found in Voltaire's
correspondence is the use made of it by Des-
fontaines in his first letter to Voltaire (M. 33,
p. 110). This wretched scribbler writes as fol-
lows to his benefactor: "Je suis trop connu
dans le monde pour qu'il convienne a un homme
comme moi de me taire apres un si execrable
affront." Later, after the beginning of hostili-
ties between him and Voltaire, he wrote to the
poet in the most fatuous vein (M. 33, p. 569) :
" Qui vous jugera, si vous vous recusez ? Je
veux bien que vous sachiez qu'en toutes sortes
de matieres, et meme surjos ouvrages de poesie,
je suis en etat de vous dor :r des conseils, ay ant
1'etude et le jugement necessaires, et un gout
qui passe pour assez sur." He refers to Vol-
taire's apology for the tutoiement of the Mort
de Cesar, which, he says, has given rise to a
thousand jests. He asks him if he remembers
that the tutoiement was the source of his affair
of 1725, and adds: Le vers de Lamotte: taisez-
vous, me dis-tu, me parait admirable au-
jourd'hui. He tells Voltaire that he does not
wish to have any quarrel with him, but if there
is one he will get the better of him both by the
244 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
justice of his reasons and by the authority
which he has acquired in the Republic of Letters,
and will make him pass pour le Claudien du
siecle: car, en matiere de theatre, il ne serait
pas seulement question de vous.
It is a matter of the greatest astonishment to
us that this obscure wretch, whose very name
would have been forgotten but for Voltaire,
should have used such language. His fatuous
use of un homme comme moi, and his reference
to the tutoiement which caused Voltaire's
"affaire of 1725" and the verse of Lamotte:
taisez-vous, me dis-tu, indicate the meaning of
the name Itobad. Voltaire uses an anagramme,
Iro, to represent the name of the poet Roi, whose
fatuity we will discuss in a moment. Herbelot
gives the significance of bad as " wind," and we
have seen that Herbelot is largely Voltaire's
authority. Is is not likely that Itobad means
the blatant fellow who is always saying of him-
self, moi, moi, un homme comme moi, and of
other people and to them: toi, toi, un homme
comme toi; a fellow who criticizes Voltaire's
tragedy for the tutoiement, and who points to
some misfortunes which the use of tu, toi,
brought upon Voltaire in 1725 ? And what was
JESRAD 245
this misfortune? We know of no affair except
that of Rohan-Chabot. Is it possible that Vol-
taire's misfortune was caused by some use of
the second personal pronoun to the worthless
cadet of a great house ? Or did Rohan-Chabot
resent Voltaire's tutoiement of Mile. Lecouv-
reur? At all events this interpretation of the
name and its application to Desfontaines is
strengthened by Desfontaines' fatuous refer-
ences to himself in the Voltairomanie. He calls
himself un homme de qualite, says Voltaire (M.
23, p. 25), parce quil a un frere auditeur des
comptes a Rouen; homme de bonnes tnceurs,
because he was only a few days at Bicetre; he
compares himself to Despreaux, because he com-
posed a work in verse ; he boasts that he always
goes with a laquais, but neglects to say whether
the laquais is before or behind.
The fatuity of Desfontaines was not the ex-
ception but the rule among Voltaire's enemies.
At the time that he was bending every effort to
get into the French Academy the Abbe de
Bernis, who had just been elected, and whose
meteoric career of favor with the Pompadour
was rising to its apogee, was preparing to praise,
in his Discours de reception, that other symbol
246 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
of Envie, the poet Eoi (M. 36, p. 330). Vol-
taire can scarce restrain his indignation. He
writes to d'Argental to see Bernis and get him
to omit his praise. "Eoi de grands talents!
quatre ou cinq scenes de ballet; des vers medi-
ocres, dans un genre tres-mediocre : voila de
plaisants talents! Y a-t-il de quoi racheter les
horreurs de sa vie?" Eoi himself writes to
the lieutenant general de police (M. 36, p. 437)
as follows: "Au retour de la~campagne, ou
j'etais alle ensevelir mon chagrin sur la mort
de ma soeur, j'ai appris que ma reputation etait
vivement attaquee par le sieur de Voltaire. . . .
L'homme qui veut etre a toute force mon ennemi
me choisit entre tous les siens pour m'imputer
tout ce qui s'ecrit contre lui : il craint que je ne
fusse son concurrent a 1'Academie, moi dont
1'indifference ou la retenue sur ce vain titre est
connu de toute la France. ... II pretexte sa
calomnie de 1'envie que me doit causer son ta-
lent, et du chagrin qu'il me fait en donnant ses
ouvrages lyriques a la cour et a la ville. En
verite, monsieur, ai-je perdu a la comparaison,
et dois-je etre mortifie ? " And he is the fellow
who claimed that Voltaire "lui avait rendu la
lyre!"
JESEAD 247
But perhaps the greatest fatuity was observed
in Lefranc de Pompignan, whose very name has
something of the pretentious, the pompous,
about it. At the time when he stole Voltaire's
subject of Alzire and prepared to have his
tragedy presented before Voltaire's at the
Theatre-Francois, the comedians desired to hear
his tragedy read a second time to them be-
fore proceeding with the distribution of the
roles. This little provincial, who had produced
nothing but his tragedy of Didon, who was a
plagiary, Voltaire says, and known largely for
his friendship for Kousseau and Desfontaines,
wrote as follows to the directors of the Theatre-
Frangais (M. 10, p. 105): "Je suis fort sur-
pris, messieurs, que vous exigez une seconde
lecture d'une tragedie telle que Zora'ide. Si
vous ne vous connaissez pas en merite, je me
connais en precedes, et je me souviendrai assez
longtemps des votres pour ne plus m'occuper
d'un theatre ou 1'on distingue si peu les per-
sonnes et les talents."
Voltaire had already described this type of
man in his English Letters (M. 22, p. Ill) :
"Whoever comes from the provinces with
money and a name in -ac or -ille, can say: Un
248 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
homme c&mme moi, un Tiomme de qualite. Such
a man despises a merchant; he would never
think of working for a living. He is like the
numerous descendants of the noble houses of
Germany who have nothing but their name and
sovereign prideV'
One of the contradictions that Voltaire notes
in France (M. 22, p. 25) is that a bishop, who
preaches humility and is vowed to poverty, re-
fuses, his door to anyone who does not call him
Monseigneur, whereas a marshal of France, who
commands 100,000 men, is content with Mon-
sieur. So Itobad has himself called Monsei-
gneur by his servants. Voltaire follows his usual
practice, in raising individual enemies in the
Republic of Letters into the domain of religion :
Itobad becomes the representative of the bla-
tancy of the clergy. This seems all the more
probable from a similar episode, that of Irax,
which was first published by the Kehl editors,
and which we will consider here.
THE EPISODE OF IRAX
Complaints came every day to the court
against the Itimadoulet de Medie, named Irax.
" C'etait un grand seigneur dont le fonds n'etait < v
JESEAD 249
pas mauvais, mais qui etait corrompu par la
vanite et par la volupte. II souffrait rarement
qu'on lui parlat, et jamais qu'on 1'osat contre-
dire. Les paons ne sont pas plus vains, les
colombes ne sont pas plus voluptueuses, les tor-
tues ont moins de paresse; il ne respirait que
la fausse gloire et les faux plaisirs." Zadig
undertook to correct him. He sent him a music
master, with twelve voices and twenty-four
violinists, a chef, with six cooks and four cham-
berlains, who were never to quit Irax for a
moment. , The musicians were to sing a cantata,
lasting two hours, the refrain of which, recur-
ring at intervals of three minutes, was as fol-
lows:
" Que son merite est extreme !
Que de graces! que de grandeur!
Ah! combien monseigneur
Doit etre content de lui-meme ! "
After the execution of the cantata a chamber-
lain made a harangue of three quarters of an
hour in which Irax was praised expressly for
the qualities which he lacked. Then he was
conducted to dinner at the sound of instruments.
The dinner lasted three hours, and as soon as
Irax opened his mouth to speak, the first cham-
250 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
berlain said: II aura raison. Hardly had he
uttered four words when the second chamber-
lain cried : II a raison. The other two chamber-
lains laughed loudly at the bons mots which
Irax said or which he ought to have said. After
dinner the cantata was repeated. At first Irax
thought that the King was honoring him ac-
cording to his merit, but he soon got tired of the
regime, and promised to be less vain and to
apply himself to some useful labor. II se fit
moins encenser, eui moins de fetes, et fut plus
heureux; car, comme dit le Sadder, toujours
du plaisir nest pas du plaisir.
The realistic basis of this episode is obvious
when it is applied to Jean Jacques Lefranc de
Pompignan. Marmontel visited Voltaire at
Ferney when the Patriarch was " hunting Pom-
pignan every morning, in accordance with his
doctor's orders, for his health." Indeed, Ma,r-
montel says, Voltaire seemed to have grown ten
years younger from this exercise. Of Lefranc
Marmontel says (Memoires, Vol. I, p. 413) :
" L'exces de sa vanite, de sa presomtion, de son
ambition 1'avait enivre. Malheureusement trop
flatte dans ses academies de Montauban et de
Toulouse, accoutume a s'y entendre applaudir
JESEAD 261
des qu'il ouvrait la bouche, et meme avant
qu'il eut parle vante dans les journaux dont
il savait gagner ou payer la f aveur, il se croyait
un homme d'importance en litterature; et par
malheur encore il avait ajoute a 1'arrogance
d'un seigneur de paroisse 1'orgueil d'un presi-
dent de cour superieure dans sa ville de Mon-
tauban; ce qui formait un personnage ridicule
dans tous les points. D'apres 1'opinion qu'il
avait de lui-meme, il avait trouve malhonnete
qu'a la premiere envie qu'il avait temoignee
d'etre de 1' Academic franchise, on ne se fut
pas empresse a 1'y recevoir; et, lorsqu'en 1758,
Sainte-Palaye y avait eu sur lui la preference,
il en avait marque un superbe depit. Deux
ans apres, 1' Academic n'avait pas laisse de
lui accorder ses souffrages; et il n'y avait pour
lui que de 1'agrement dans 1'unanimite de son
election; mais, au lieu de la modestie que les
plus grands homines eux-memes affectaient, au
moins en y entrant, il y apporta 1'humeur de
1'orgueil offense, avec un exces d'aprete et de
hauteur inconcevable."
Voltaire undertook to correct ce grave magis-
trat, qui vint de Montauban pour gouverner
I'Etat (M. 10, p. 415), who thought the whole
252 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
universe occupied with his literary productions.
He did this in the series of satires known as
the Monosyllables, the verses on Vanity, the
Hymne chante au village de Pompignan, etc.
Of these satires we may quote from the Qui and
from the Hymne. The first is typical of the
Monosyllables (M. 10, p. 562) :
" Qui pilla jadis Metastase,
Et Qui crut imiter Maron?
Qui, bouffi d'ostentation,
Sur ses ecrits est en extase?
Qui si longuement paraphrase
David en de"pit d'Apollon,
Pretendant passer pour un vase
Qu'on appelle d'election?
Qui, parlant a sa nation,
Et Pinsultant avec emphase,
Pense etre au haut de PHelicon
Lorsqu'il barbote dans la vase?
Qui dans plus d'une periphrase
A ses maitres fait la lecon?
Entre nous, je crois que son nom
Commence en V, et finit en aze."
The Hymne chante au village de Pompignan
(M. 10, p. 569) probably furnished the idea
for the cantata of the episode of Irax. The fol-
lowing verses show its nature :
.IKS RAD 253
"Je suis marquis, robin, poete,
Mes chers amis;
Vous voyez que je suis prophete
En mon pays.
A Paris c'est tout autrement.
Et vive le roi, et Simon Le Franc,
Son favori, son favori!
"J'ai fait un psautier judai'que,
On n'en sait rien;
J'ai fait un beau pane'gyrique,
Et c'est le mien :
De moi je suis content.
Et vive le roi, et Simon Le Franc,
Son favori, son favori."
The part of the episode dealing with the
harangue and the dinner was probably sug-
gested by the satire of Voltaire (M. 24, p. 461),
entitled Relation du Voyage de M. le Marquis
Lefranc de Pompignan depuis Pompignan
jusqu'a Fontainebleau. Pompignan is repre-
sented as speaking. He describes a sermon and
procession of which he was the hero; also a
repast of twenty-six covers dont il sera parle a
jamais. In this sermon (M. 24, p. 459) it is
said that Dieu a donne a ce marquis la jeunesse
et les ailes de I'aigle, quit est assis pres des
astres, que I'impie rampe a ses pieds dans la
boue, qu'il est admire de I'univers, et que son
254 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
genie brille d'un eclat immortel. That is the
justice that the Marquis renders to himself.
Pompignan tried to defend himself from Vol-
taire's attacks, but he only made himself more
ridiculous. "H addressa un memoire au roi;
son memoire fut bafoue. Voltaire parut ra-
jeunir pour s'egayer a ses depens; en vers, en
prose, sa malice fut plus legere, plus piquante,
plus feconde en idees originales et plaisantes
qu'elle n'avait jamais ete. Une saillie n'atten-
dait pas 1'autre. Le public ne cessa de rire aux
depens du triste Le Franc. Oblige de se tenir
enfenne chez lui, pour ne pas entendre chanter
sa chanson dans le monde, et, pour ne pas se
voir montrer au doigt, il finit par aller s'en-
sevelir dans son chateau, ou il est mort, sans
avoir jamais ose reparaitre a 1'Academie"
(Marmontel, Memoires, Vol. 1, p. 413). In
other words, the cure of Irax, itimadoulet de
Medie, was effected. Voltaire says of Lefranc
(M. 10, p. 104, Le pauvre Didble), what he
says of Irax, dont le fonds netait pas mauvais:
he gives him credit for being a man of merit,
with the exception of the vanity and vainglory
of his Discours de reception. This note is of
JESRAD 255
1771, and is thus an indication of the time of
the composition of the episode of Irax.
The only other character of whom Voltaire
uses language comparable to that of the epi-
sode and of the satire on Pompignan, is the
pope (M. 21, p. 416), who is always right, no
matter what he says or does. It is likely that
he meant the episode of Irax to be typical of
the pope, thus giving it a larger significance.
The name is explainable on this basis as an
anagramme of ArcAi(mage). This association
was the more easily made by the poet since Le-
franc and his brother were compared to Moses
and Aaron, destined to lead the chosen people
of God, and since \ r oltaire calls him " Simon "
Lefranc, i. e., Simon Barjone, i. e., Peter, as
the vicar of Christ.
I have already referred to the same type as
Itobad in Saint Austin in the Pucelle, who
sings of the God of vengeance, of the exter-
minating angel, of twenty thousand Jews cut
to pieces for a veau, of Joaz killed by Josabad.
son of Atrobad, et Athcdie, si mechamment mise
a mort par Joad. He receives the treatment
that was accorded to Itobad :
256 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
" Austin rougit, il f uit en tapinois :
Chacun en rit, le paradis le hue.
Tel fut hue dans les murs de Paris
Un pedant sec, a face de Thersite,
Vil delateur, insolent hypocrite,
Qui fut paye de haiue et de mepris
Quand il osa, dans ses phrases vulgaires,
Fletrir les arts et condamner nos freres."
Lefranc had imitated Rousseau and Des-
fontaines in composing paraphrases of the
psalms, and Voltaire's description of the mod-
ern David (M. 24, p. 125) is similar to his
description of Saint Augustin :
" Le cruel Amalec tombe
Sous le fer de Josue;
L'orgueilleux Jabin succombe
Sous le fer d'Albinoe.
Issacar a pris les armes:
Zabulon court aux alarmes," etc.
The verdict of the spectators is mentis non
compos. He is to be put on a strict regime in
his native province until he recovers his balance.
I think that the chief reason why the episode
of Irax was introduced into Voltaire's novel
is that the character is of the same general type
as that of Itobad, and Lefrance had been, in
part, designated by Itobad. Voltaire repeats
JE8EAD 257
against Lefranc the same jests that he made
against Desfontaines, (1) that he was a pla-
giarist, a robber in the Eepublic of Letters, (2)
that he went derriere un jesuite, and (3) that
his nobility was assumed. In the Car (M. 24,
p. 261), he says: Ne faites point le grand seig-
neur, car vous etes d'une bonne bourgeoisie.
The fact that Lefranc's theft of the subject of
Alzire occurred at a time when Desfontaines
and Rousseau were trying to overwhelm the
poet would readily lead him to subsume them
under the same symbol. They all proclaim
their supremacy, their preeminence, but they
are unable to prove it by their deeds. The
burden of many a line of Voltaire is : Enter the
arena, show your prowess, avenge yourself on
your rival by surpassing him, not by robbing
him, traducing him, or besmirching his honor.
In the combats for the supremacy in Baby-
lon there are only three contestants whose names
are given: Zadig, Itobad, and Ornate. There
are good reasons for thinking that Ornate is an
anagramme for Mahomet. In the chapter on
Arbogad I have shown the intimate connection
between the Voltairomanie of Desfontaines and
the tragedy Mahomet of Voltaire: they are
17
258 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
equivalent symbols, the symbol of exclusive
domination. By the composition of his tragedy
Voltaire becomes the victor of Mahomet and
Zadig the victor of Ornate. But Desfontaines,
both by the composition of the Voltairomanie,
and by his efforts, in conjunction with the other
enemies of Voltaire, to suppress the tragedy in
Paris, can claim the victory over Voltaire's
Mahomet, just as Itobad claims the victory over
Ornate. This is effected, however, only by
rapine, by treachery, by traducing virtue into
vice, by robbing the real victor of the fruit of
his victory. That is the ultimate significance
of the episode. Voltaire's only recourse, then,
was to withdraw from the combat entirely, or
to enroll himself under the banner of the cross.
He chose the latter course : he donned cowl and
gown, he bowed his head and adored.
But what did he adore ?
There is always a sense in which everything
that Voltaire says is true. Undoubtedly every-
thing in this world is, from the point of view
of man, "reward, or punishment, or trial, or
foresight." If we did not learn from experi-
ence the race would never advance, any more
than the individual. One does not have to be
JE8EAD 269
devout to bow to Providence, or Destiny, or
whatever one may call the spirit that rules the
universe. It is the knowledge of what destiny
is: that is, the inevitable linking of cause and
effect in a given environment, that makes man
prudent. It was that knowledge that induced
Henry IV to say: Paris vaut bien une messe.
And it was that knowledge which induced Vol-
taire to think that a place among the Immortals
was worth his submission to the angel Jesrad.
I think that this name is influenced by several
sources, namely, (1) by the name Jesus, (2)
by the name Jezad among the Persians, (3)
by the Hebrew Yezer (cf. Jewish Encyclopedia,
Vol. 12, pp. 601-602, in the Talmud), and (4)
by the Jezidae, worshippers of the devil.
Voltaire wished, I think, to characterize
especially the spirit of Christ and of the Chris-
tians, the new stoics, as he calls them. The
passions of man are given to Jam as a necessary
mainspring of his beingj without them he would
not act. But when man, whether in the form of
Christ, Moses, or Mohammed, or the followers
of any religious prophet, speaks in the name of
the Deity, and justifies the exercise of his pas-
260 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
sions by the divinity of his mission: when he
cries, in short, of the Diety :
" Ce n'est pas moi, c'est lui qui manque a ma parole,
Qui frappe par mes mains, pille, brule, viole"
then he makes his passions divine ; he makes the
devil his God. Voltaire does not hesitate to
draw this conclusion (M. 9, p. 388) :
" Les tristes partisans de ce dogme effroydble
Diraient-ils rien de plus s'ils adoraient le diable? }>1
Of course there is a sense in which God draws
the bow, the arrow of which pierces an innocent
and virtuous heart. That action is not done
contrary to God's will, for that would involve
a contradiction in terms ; therefore it was God's
will. Of course Providence is responsible for
all that is; it was Providence that robbed the
rich and hospitable man and gave to the rich
miser; it was Providence that burnt down the
philosopher's house; it was Providence that
wrung the neck of the nephew of the poor widow.
1 Voltaire seems to wish to indicate the equivalence of
Jesus and the devil when he says (Annales de I 'Empire,
Beuchot, 23, p. 121 repeated in Essay sur les Mceurs,
Beuchot, 16, p. 3) that to invoke the devil and not
believe in Jesus is a contradiction.
JESRAD 261
But the man, whether Moses, or Mohammed, or
Christ, who claimed to have a special mission,
a special revelation, and, in short, whoever^
used the Deity as a justification of his own
actions, was simply abusing this eternal verity.
He was either a madman or an impostor. Zadig *
judges the actions of Jesrad by his reason and
condemns them, just as we would judge them
and condemn them in any one of our fellow
beings. It is only after the metamorphosis of
the monk into the angel of light ; it is only when
we are made to hear the voice of the Deity, the
voice of revelation, that murder, pillage, rapine,
become justified. Then, in order to reconcile
our ideas Of right and justice with whatever
conflicts with them, we assign motives to the.
Deity. God had a particular purpose in the
death of Henry IV, for example, or in the mur-
der of the poor widow's nephew. We must
acknowledge that purpose, since our religion
tells us that God is omniscient, omnipotent and
ubiquitous, and not a hair can fall from our
heads without his will.
Voltaire's first purpose, in the creation of
this episode, was, I think, to turn the weapons
of his enemies against them. He had accom-
262 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIKE'S NOVELS
plished his purpose:! he was King of Babylon
and husband of Astarte. He could now say to
his enemies: That is the result of Providence.
X His second purpose seems to me to be to mark
the equivalence of the principles of good and
evil. Either one is a Manichaean, i. e., a be-
liever in two eternally warring principles, or a
Christian, i. e., a believer in an omniscient,
omnipotent, and all-good God, who has, how-
ever, given the world over to the devil (cf. M.
18, p. 165), or one believes in one God, the
author of all that is. In the first case we really
have two gods instead of one; in the second
case the real ruler of the world is the devil ; in
the third case God is the devil and vice versa.
Now Voltaire's philosophy was very simple. 1
Considering, as he did, that jhere is no evil in
tlio world except "par rapport a nous/' it was
absurd to speak of the justice or injustice of
God; we might just as well speak of him as
blue, or round, or square. Man has no reason
to, think that God owed him any more happiness
than falls to his lotj God has made no pact with
him. Rather than be surprised that God has
made us so limited in power and capacity, we
1 Cf . Traite de Metaphysique.
JE8RAD 263
should be grateful that our limitations are not
less than they are.
Voltaire's third purpose was, I think, to lash '
the Providence of the Christians. I deduce this
conclusion from the name of the angel Jesrad,
and from his doctrine. The name is compar-
able, I think, to any such formation as Henri-
ade, Crepinade, Roussade: it is the satire of
Jesus. His doctrine is that of the Christians:
the assigning of motives to God to account for
evil to man. The philosopher loses a beloved
child in the bloom of youth; he bears his loss
as best he may, but he would never for a mo-
ment consider that God had a special purpose
in taking his child from him. He would not
try to console himself by saying that his son
might have become a wicked man had he lived.
The Christian, on the other hand, whether he
formulates his reasons or not, considers that God
has a special design in everything, whether it
be the death of his child or the burning of his
house. His child has been taken from him, be-
cause he loved it more than God, etc. His
house has been burned down, because he cared
too much for temporal possessions. This
marked for Voltaire the type of the man-god : a
264 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIEE'S NOVELS
god with the passions of man infinitely magni-
fied, jealous like us, envious of our happiness,
iusulted if we did not take off our hats to
him, etc.
The name of the angel was influenced, in all j
probability, by the name of the indwelling spirit
of man, as characterized in the Talmud. This
spirit, Yezer (cf. Jewish Encyclopedia), is both
good and evil. In the second place, Voltaire
found in Hyde's Religion of the ancient Per-
sians the name Jezad, both alone and in com-
position, both as the name of an angel and as
the name of God. He found there also a de-
scription of the cult of the Jezidae, or Jezidi,
who worshipped the devil, whom they called
Pavo-Angelus, Peacock Angel. These sectar-
ians are neither Christians nor Mohammedans,
but they are closer to the former than to the
latter, says Hyde. Their Jezid, from whom
they derive their name, is considered by some
to be the same as Jesus Christ. >
As I have already said, there is a sense in
which everything is reward, or punishment, or
trial, or foresight; everything has some reac-
tion upon man, which may be ranged under one
or the other of these headings. Especially the
JESRAD 266
word "trial" (epreuve) lets the Christian out
of many difficulties. Voltaire says (M. 18, p.
266) "if there are difficulties that cannot be
explained away and things that revolt our
reason, they are merely to try our faith." But
we can not understand this episode of the angel
Jesrad unless we look upon it as a principle,
philosophy, or religion in action in the person
of some mortal man, who justifies his crimes as
in the verses already quoted from the Discours
en vers sur 1'homme :
" Ce n'est pas moi, c*est lui qui manque a ma parole,
Qui frappe par mes mains, pttle, br&le, viole."
The partisans of this frightful dogma could not
say more if they worshipped the devil. 1
1 The only episodes of Zadig that I have not treated
are those dealing with the King of Serendib, and these
will form part of a future companion volume dealing
specially with Candide.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
As I have already indicated in the Introduction, the
warp and woof of my study is a first-hand investiga-
tion of Voltaire's works, all of which I have read in
the sole view of interpreting his novels. I have used
the Moland edition (Paris, 1877-85, 50 volumes, with
two extra containing an index), except where it was
not available, namely for the Annales de 1'Empire
and the Essai sur les Moeurs, where I used Beuchot
(Paris, 1829^40, 70 volumes, with two extra contain-
ing the index). For the bibliography of Voltaire's
works I have consulted Bengesco where there has
been any necessity of determining the date of a par-
ticular work.
In addition the following books have been quoted
or referred to in the body of my work:
GENERAL WORKS
Marmontel, Jean Francois. (Euvres. Paris, 1818:
especially his Memoires and History of the Re-
gency.
Maupertius, Pierre Louis Moreau. CEuvres. Lyon,
1756: especially his Essais sur les progres des
sciences.
Rousseau, Jean Baptiste. (Euvres. London, 1723,
and Brussels, 1743.
266
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 267
Rousseau, Jean Jacques. CEuvres. Neuchatel, 1764:
especially his Discours " Si le Re'tablissement des
arts a contribue* a e"purer les moeurs" and that
" Sur Porigine et les fondements de I'mSgalite"
parmi les hoinmes."
BIOGRAPHIES
Desnoiresterres, G. Voltaire et la socie'te' au 18 -
Siecle. 8 vols. Paris, 1871-76.
Luchet, marquis de (Jean Pierre Louis La Roche du
Maine). Histoire litteraire de M. de Voltaire.
6 vols. Cassel, 1780.
Morley, John. (Life of) Voltaire. 1 vol. London,
1897, and (Life of) Rousseau (J. J.). 2 vols.
London, 1873.
Parton, James. Life of Voltaire. 2 vols. Boston,
1882.
Straus, D. F. Sechs Vortrage tiber Voltaire (vol. 11
of Gesammelte Schriften). Bonn, 1876-78.
Tallentyre, S. GK The Life of Voltaire. 2 vols. New
York, 1903.
CRITICISM
A. Histories of Literature
Hettner, H. Geschichte der f ranz. Litt. im 18. Jahr.
5. verb. Auf. Braunschweig, 1894.
Lanson, O. Histoire de la litterature franc.aise.
Paris, 1898.
Petit de Julleville. Histoire de la langue et de la litt.
francaise des origines a 1900: chapter on the
novel in the seventeenth and the eighteenth cen-
turies.
268 SYMBOLISM OF VOLTAIRE'S NOVELS
B. Histories of Fiction
Crane, T. F. Introduction to Boileau's " Les Heros
de Roman." Ginn & Co., 1902.
Dunlop, J. 0. History of Prose Fiction. Ed. by
Wilson. London, 1896.
Le Breton, A. Le Roman au 17 e siecle. Paris, 1890.
Morillot, P. Le Roman en Trance depuis 1610
jusqu'a nos jours. Paris, n. d.
Warren, . History of the Novel previous to the
seventeenth century. New York, 1895.
C. Dealing with the Orient
Conant, Martha P. The Oriental Tale in England in
the eighteenth century. New York, 1908.
Hammer-Purgstall. Geschichte der schonen Rede-
kiinste Persiens. Wien, 1818; tiber die Namen
der Araber and Geisterlehre der Moslinen, in
Denksschriften der K. Akad. der Wissenschaften,
dritter Band, Wien, 1852.
Herbelot, Barthelemie. Bibliotheque orientale. La
Haye, 1777-79.
Hyde, Thomas. Veterum Persarum et Parthorum et
Medorum Religionis Historia. Editio Secunda,
1760.
Martino, Pierre. L'Orient dans la litterature fran-
gaise au 17 e et au 18 e siecle. Paris, 1906.
Meynard, Barbier de. Introduction to, and transla-
tion of, Le Boustan ou Verger, poeme persan de
Saadi. Paris, 1880.
Remy, A. J. F. The Influence of India and Persia
on the Poetry of Germany. New York, 1901.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 269
SPECIAL WORKS
Bonnefon, P. Une inimitiS litte'raire au 18 e siecle.
Voltaire et Jean Baptiste Rousseau. Revue
d'Histoire litteraire, Vol. 9, 1902.
Fraser, Leon. A literary Genealogy. Modern Lan-
guage Notes. 1906.
Grafigny, Mme de. Vie privee de Voltaire et de Mme.
du Chatelet. Paris, 1820.
Haupt, H. Voltaire in Frankfurt, 1753. Zsc. f . fr.
Sp. u. U., Vol. 27, 1909.
Jewish Encyclopedia. Funk and Wagnalls Com-
pany. New York and London, 1906.
Mangold, W. Voltaires Rechtstreit mit dem K.
Schutzjuden Hirschel, 1751. Prozessakten des
Kb'niglichen-Preussischen Hausarchivs. Berlin,
1905. Reviewed in Herrigs Archiv, Vol. 16
(1906), p. 429 ff.
Paris, Gaston. L'Ange et 1'Eremite, in La Poesie du
moyen age. Premiere serie, troisieme edition.
Paris, 1895, p. 151 ff.
Seele, F. W. Voltaires Roman Zadig ou la destinee;
eine Quellenforschung. Leipzig, 1891.
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